Of Beating Hearts
by charrrmed
Summary: They were no different, she and them. She had an advantage because of her powers, but in the end she hurt just as much as the kids her neighbors took to school, just as much as the reporters who lamented the death of seventeen-year-old Jeremy Gilbert.
1. That Organ in Her Chest

**That Organ in Her Chest**

Bonnie extended her upper body into her car to retrieve her bulky messenger bag, and then she shut the door with a swing of her hip. She leaned against the door like she'd been doing for two weeks now and closed her eyes. Today was a day when the wind picked up her hair and whispered through her roots. She focused on the sounds in her neighborhood: car doors opening and closing either because moms and dads were leaving to go pick up their children or because people her age were pulling home from school, a car honking so that the one in front of it would move past the stop sign, and the stillness in front of her house.

It was two weeks ago that she'd stepped outside of herself.

Since Jeremy had died and for four days after she'd brought him back to life, she had been withdrawn. Everything and everyone around her had dulled to an unremarkable light grey, and the only colors were her feelings, Jeremy's death, and Jeremy coming back to life. Everything outside of those things were simply unremarkable. It wasn't until two weeks ago, when she'd come back from school the day after Jeremy had sat her down for a talk, that she'd realized that there were colors around her. Life was colorful again, or, rather, there was life again.

The belated realization had made her smile and, closing her eyes, she had infused the struggling grass in front of her house with that life so that it was just a little greener than her neighbors' grass and just a little taller and the soil just a little richer.

The first four days that Jeremy had been back, he had been all she'd been able to focus on, though she'd done a lot, unconsciously, to put people between them, to keep from being alone with him. She'd felt like she was existing a little bit outside of herself, like she was seeing him without really seeing him, like maybe he was more real than her. He was fresh-faced, his brown eyes active, his muscles well-oiled and working, while she'd been tight with apprehension and still had grief in her bones, loss in her bones, anger in her bones, the density of being a witch, of being Bonnie Bennett, of fixing everything and performing miracles, and being the beacon, the lighthouse, during a turbulence, all of it filled her bones so that she was heavy and less real than he was.

During those first four days he looked at her and she remembered their time on the other side, after she'd talked her dad into letting her channel him so that she could stop her heart and see Jeremy. It hadn't been an easy conversation.

/

_Two weeks and four days ago_

_/_

"Bonnie, you're talking about Dark magic."

"I know what it is, dad; I've done it before. I just need to see him. I need to talk to him. I need to ask him something."

Rudy paced the living room, one hand on his hip and the other stroking his closely-shaved head. He was on board for her killing someone to bring Jeremy back. He couldn't not be after she'd spent the day after her return from the island throwing up in the bathroom because her memory of Jeremy's death had come back.

She'd had a vision of it in painful detail right before she woke up, and her stomach hadn't been able to handle the image of his lifeless body with the open eyes that weren't seeing, so she'd vomited until she'd been dry heaving and all he'd been able to do was clean her mouth and hold her, and give her water to rinse her mouth and beg her to please stop throwing up because she'd emptied her stomach.

She'd shaken her head in the negative, crying and inconsolable, repeating over and over, "Dad, please. Dad. I saw it. I saw him."

She'd clung to his wrist with a desperation that he hadn't seen since her nightmares in the wake of Abby's departure when she was a toddler.

He'd tucked her between his legs in the bathroom and rocked her while Abby had contacted her friend.

They hadn't been interested in deterring her from bringing Jeremy back; they'd only been concerned about the type of magic she would use; they'd only been interested in minimizing the damage.

During a quiet moment when she'd been tucked in bed and staring at the wall by her door, he'd come to check on her and to bid her goodnight. He'd asked her how she was feeling, like he'd been doing since she got back, and she'd said, "I want him back, dad. And if I can't, if for some reason I can't...can we move? Please?"

He'd sat on the bed and she'd gotten up to sit against the headboard. She'd looked terrible, tired, like she could sleep for the rest of the month. He knew that the only thing that was powering her was bringing Jeremy back to life.

"You want to move?"

"Yeah. I don't wanna stay here. I can't." She teared up. "They can't have us both. I can't continue to do this, keep caring, if he's not here. It's not fair; They can't have us both, the spirits, God, the Goddess, whoever or whatever is watching over this, they can't have us both. Either they give me Jeremy and they keep me, or they keep Jeremy and lose me. I can't care anymore. I'm done. So can we please move?"

He'd nodded. Yes, they could move. They could leave all of this behind, just like he'd suggested to Abby once.

"But you know there are vampires in other places; there are _things_ in other places."

"It won't be here; it won't be Mystic Falls. We can move down the street from Aunt Naomi and uncle Willie in Savannah. I'm done with this place," she shrugged. "I _hate_ this place," and she dissolved into tears. "I don't wanna do this anymore."

So he was on board for her killing someone to bring Jeremy back. That was the life his baby was living. But as a father, he didn't want to give too much. He didn't want to follow her lead too much, because she _was_ impaired; she _wasn't_ thinking clearly; she was single-minded at present so that meant she didn't care much for risks to herself.

So she wanted to channel him to stop her heart, and he had to decide whether or not that was okay, whether or not that was in her best interest, whether or not, in her grief, she wanted to do more harm to herself than good. They had figured out a way to bring Jeremy back, so why did she want to stop her heart and join him on the OtherSide? He needed to make sure she wasn't damaging herself.

"I need to make sure he wants to come back," she quietly answered his unasked question.

He stopped pacing and said, "Oh baby. Why wouldn't he?" He thought again of how tired she looked as she sat on the couch, leaning on her hands that were clasped on her thighs.

Bonnie's smile was barely noticeable. Her father had dug his head so deep in the sands that he couldn't fathom why Jeremy might not want to reclaim the life he'd been living, the same one that had led him straight to death's lair.

Instead of explaining, she said, "Please."

She could attempt the spell herself, but that was it: at most it would be an attempt. Relying only on her powers meant relying on her energy, which meant there was a high chance that she would fail, that she'd only bleed and pass out, not die. And she did not want to know the consequences of a botched spell meant to stop the heart.

So she stood from the couch and joined her father in the middle of the living room. They sat, and she held out her hands. His weighed heavy on hers, and she looked up at him. "You need to know exactly what's going to happen." She cleared her throat. "I'm going to use Dark magic, so...I mean Jeremy told me that there were these black veins on my hands and face the last time I did this-"

"Wait. You've done this before?"

She folded her lips guiltily and then cleared her throat again. "And I saw them when the spirits took grams away from me. So that's gonna happen. I might also...bleed." She cringed inwardly and hoped Rudy wouldn't change his mind when he inhaled deeply, clearly uncomfortable with how the spell is going to work. "And then I'll die." But she wasn't finished.

"Also..." she avoided his eyes for a second but then squared her shoulders and looked at him head-on. "The last time I was on the OtherSide...grams warned me that the spirits could keep me there."

Rudy was silent for a second and then, "What?"

It was Bonnie's turn to inhale.

"No, what? Bonnie-"

"Dad-"

"No. What do you mean _keep_ you?"

"For messing around-"

He took his hands back.

"Dad-"

"You're telling me you could _die_. Permanently. That's what _keeping_ you there means, right? They make you _stay_ dead?"

"That's not gonna happen," she said hurriedly.

"You just said-"

"I know, _but they won't keep me_."

"How do you know?"

"Because I've _alive_." Her body shook with the force she used to say the word. "I'm alive. _I'm_ alive. I'm the one who's here; we were both in that stupid cave, and someone stabbed me in the _back_, dad. It hurt, and there was blood in my mouth, _a lot_ of blood, and I could barely speak, and I could barely _see_ his face, but I knew it was him; it was Jeremy above me, and it was just the two of us, but somehow _I'm_ the one who made it even though I should've died first. Or after him."

She squeezed her hands against her eyes and felt the hot tears. "Silas saved me. This two thousand year-old vampire saved me. I should've died. My wound was fatal. I was paralyzed, and I couldn't move, and I watched him die. I couldn't do anything. _Because I was dying_."

"But then I didn't die," she shrugged. "I don't understand it. I just didn't die. Because somehow Silas needs me. And I don't understand it. It worked out that he needed me, so that stupid cave wasn't the last thing I saw. So...they're not gonna keep me. Whatever it was that saved me then...will probably save me again. Because I'm needed...I'm needed to help, I think. That's why I'm alive: to help. I'm in the middle, so I can't just die. Not like Jeremy. But...if I can't have him...then I won't help anymore. Because I made a choice, once." She chuckled and took in her dad's troubled features, and she realized that this was the longest they've talked about magic, about her _real_ life.

"It wasn't really a choice. People were getting hurt; I had the power to help, to stop, or to at least make it hurt less, to...absorb some of those blows. And I did. I absorbed, and absorbed, and absorbed until I forgot that I made a choice, that it was a choice. As horrible as the alternative was, it was a choice. I barely thought about that back then. I'm tired of taking blows, dad. Of absorbing them as if they don't hurt. They _hurt_ me. They hurt _me_. I made a choice once, and I can make another one. I _will_ make another one. I can do that now. I couldn't then because the alternative seemed so...inconceivable. But the choice that I _did_ make...it's so...horrible," her voice cracked. "I've been living with the choice I made, and it's horrible. And it leads to this: Jeremy dying. Another blow. I understand the alternative now. I understand...not helping. Leaving it. I'm only alive to help...that's why my life is worth saving."

"Bonnie-" Rudy said softly.

Bonnie shook her head. It was how she felt. She hadn't died in the cave; she hadn't died after Alaric, a brand new vampire, fed on her. Anyone else would have, but she'd been saved. Whatever the vehicle, Silas, Damon, _something_ had put them there, and she'd been saved. For what?

Why?

Why _else_?

Someone thought her life was only worth saving for what she could do for others: absorb the blows, make it hurt less. She idly wondered if her life would go down in value if she stopped helping. If she took herself out of the middle, out of Mystic Falls and watched everything burn; if she heard the screams but chose to do nothing, because they could absorb the blows just like she could; they could hurt just like she could. They could die just like Jeremy did.

They were no different, she and them. She had an advantage because of her powers, but in the end she hurt just as much as the kids her neighbors took to school, just as much as the reporters who lamented the death of seventeen-year-old Jeremy Gilbert.

They were no different, and if she couldn't get Jeremy back, if he didn't want to come back or the spell failed, then she would put in end to pretending that they were, that she was different from every single other person in Mystic Falls because she'd been born with magic. She would stop pretending that she could take on more, handle more, fight more, bleed more, _lose more_ than they could. They were no different.

Rudy took her hands in his, hers light inside of his.

Bonnie held on to him and closed her eyes tight. She squeezed his hands, and Rudy remembered the first time she'd squeezed his right index finger when she was a baby, her tiny fingers unable to wrap around his index.

Now she squeezed his hands because Dark magic wrapped around her heart and gave her an attack.

Bonnie was overcome with nausea. Her left breast hurt; her back hurt, and she was running out of breath to keep reciting the spell. She couldn't stop in the middle for she would surely end up with permanent damage to her heart and body. This was the spell she'd robotically written in her room after Stefan's call to alert her that Elena was in transition. She'd sat at her desk and hunched over a piece of paper, picturing Elena with fangs and blood on her mouth. She'd needed to keep that from happening. She'd needed to save Elena. Stefan had asked her to keep him updated on her progress. He'd told her that Damon was waiting for her to wake up when she'd asked where Elena was.

She'd succeeded at not thinking about her own feelings about Elena becoming a vampire. She'd succeeded at not thinking about her undead mother and why she was in that state. Elena needed to be saved. So she'd robotically written a spell that stopped the organ beating in her chest in order to jump-start Elena's heart, her fingers gripping the pencil until they sweated and rusted.

It was such a relief when the pain went away.

It was such a relief when the magic let go of her heart.

* * *

**A/N**: Fun Fact: the prompt I gave myself for this story was **Beremy prom after Bonnie's brought Jeremy back to life, and he's been hiding in her house. **And then all of this started to pour out.


	2. The Curse of Aching Hearts

**A/N: I've changed the events that happened right after Jeremy died, Bonnie wasn't taken out of the cave by Silas, etc. You'll see :). **

**Summary: Bonnie and Jeremy reunite on the OtherSide, and Bonnie shares her plan.**

**The Curse of Aching Hearts**

When Bonnie opened her eyes, the pain was remarkably absent from her chest; she was almost woozy from the relief. Nothing hurt. She blinked and worked her throat but found that she didn't need to swallow.

The room she occupied was horizontal, and she realized that she was laying on her right side, her arm outstretched and holding her head. She sat up and couldn't feel the wooden floor she used to support her palm even though her brain told her she should feel it. She recognized the floor even though this version of it was clean. There was not a speck of dust, no cobwebs. She looked around and was in awe of the Witch House's condition. It was pristine, exactly how it looked when the construction meant to hide the violent sins of the past had been completed.

She stood, and it required no effort. She touched her chest and started at the fact that it no longer moved up and down. She wasn't breathing; her heart wasn't moving; did she still possess a heart? Was her heart simply still or was it completely gone from her chest? Her hand moved to her left breast. Well, she still had breasts and every external body part, so maybe she still had a heart.

"Bonnie."

Her musings fell from her mind. The voice was all around her on the first syllable of her name; it echoed on the first syllable and coalesced to one point on the second syllable.

"Jeremy," she said, relieved. She didn't need to search for him. He walked in from the hallway that led out of the house.

"Bonnie." His surprise showed in his eyes and the quickness of his steps. "What are you doing here?"

For a moment the hug she gave him was more important than any answer. He stooped to let her arms wrap more comfortably about his neck. He closed his eyes, and he remembered the last time they'd hugged, and the memory filled in the absence of physical feeling that was on the OtherSide, that was in this hug.

"Jeremy," Bonnie forced out. She pressed her cheek against his and imagined warmth. She touched his hair, from the top of his head to the nape of his neck, and imagined how soft it was. She pressed herself against him and remembered what it meant to mold with him, remembered how perfectly they fit together. She remembered only because memory was all one had in death. She'd never pondered on her physicality with Jeremy. Alive, her thoughts had never gone further than "He feels nice. It feels nice. This feels nice."

But in death, on the OtherSide, they fit perfectly together.

Jeremy unclasped her arms from around his neck and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you." The tone of her voice shocked both of them to their cores. It was a spine-tingling sob; a disturbing lament because she couldn't produce tears. She realized she was crying. Her face was dry; her body couldn't cry, so she cried with her voice.

The immediate concern on Jeremy's face at the tone of her voice produced a visceral memory of a heart breaking open to reveal another heart that was redder and more full of emotion, one able to handle the look on his face.

She hugged him tight, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck. "You can't be here," he said into her neck, and his voice echoed again. The longing in it surprised him, and he fisted her dark blue jean jacket.

"You hear me?" He unlocked her hands again. "You have to leave."

"No."

"Bonnie-"

"I came to bring you back."

There was silence, and he looked at her, and she looked at him with green eyes burdened by the skin on her forehead that frowned over them, and a million touches and conversations passed between them.

"I came to bring you back," she said more calmly. "I can bring you back, Jeremy," she smiled.

There was so much hope in her eyes; they stretched her lips into a smile. He stepped closer to her, and touched her forehead with his and closed his eyes. Of course she'd come to bring him back. Of course she'd figured out a way to bring him back. He didn't know how, was pretty sure that it was risky and dangerous, but she'd come to bring him back. Whatever happened next, that fact was enough: she hadn't let him go.

"How?" he asked, but he already knew his answer: no.

"It's a sacrifice. A human sacrifice." She started to speak faster when she saw that she was losing him; his face was closing off at the suggestion. "That way we won't have to rely on the spirits, and there won't be any consequences."

"Except one."

"I can handle it."

"Bonnie-"

"_I can handle killing someone._"

His hands were just a little bit softer around her arms.

"It's the only way," she whispered.

"No, it isn't," he whispered back.

Now her face closed off.

"I can stay dead."

She looked down, and he wished she could feel his hands on her. He wished he had more ways to comfort her.

"I know it's hard, but...my time came."

She shook her head in denial, but she still looked down.

"I can stay here."

"No you can't," she looked at him abruptly and the cry-moan in her voice was back and it echoed in the pristine house.

"I'm not gonna let you kill someone. Not for me; not for anyone."

She closed her eyes and wished her chest would move. He didn't get it. He thought killing someone was the hard part. She's already living the hard part; she'll be living the hard part if he refuses.

"I can do it," her voice cried. "Abby's helping me, and my dad's on board, and this woman named Aja has helped me connect to my Natural magic. It's all set. I just need to pick someone."

"No. And your Natural magic? Bon, that's even more dangerous; you'll be pulling on your body."

"I'm going to prepare first; it's all laid out; I've got a mantra to help, and I'll be doing it in the woods. I'll be connected to Nature, to everything around me." She pressed her body closer to his while she spoke in an effort to convince him, in an effort to aid the words that were coming out of her mouth.

Jeremy stared down at her, their hands squished between their bodies. "No, Bonnie," he said quietly. He saw her eyes dim, the green fade.

"You don't wanna come back, do you?" It was a question, but she pronounced it like a statement, one full of finality.

Jeremy's brows moved, and Bonnie looked away for a different reason now.

"That's why I came," she said, and Jeremy wished he could hear emotion in her voice again. It was flat now. "I wanted to find out if it was okay to resurrect you. I wanted to make sure that you wanted to come back, that I wasn't pulling you away from...peace." She untangled their hands now and stepped back.

"You're at peace," her voice quivered with unshed tears.

There was the emotion again, and he could've sagged in relief. "Peace?" he questioned, but she didn't seem to hear him.

"You don't have to deal with all that stuff anymore, with...the crap that lead you here. You're away from it, you're-free. I know how much you hated it."

"I hated it, but I stayed for you," he said, and the vehemence in his voice could've lifted her up. "And Elena," he said more softly. "I hated it, but not so much that I would-" _stay dead and leave you_.

"Then why don't you come back?" Her voice was flat again. "My heart hurts, Jeremy," and the pain in her voice pierced his conscious, what he was made of now that he longer had a body.

"For me?"

She closed her eyes tight, and her mouth was closed, but a wail ghosted through the house, and a tremendous sob followed it. She was crying, and a resounding breathlessness emanated from Jeremy's conscious and filled the house. It was a desperate breathing filled with the desire to comfort her, to make her stop crying, to make her feel better.

He closed the gap between them in one step, grasped her face and watched her eyes open right before he captured her mouth and cut off the sobs.

Bonnie immediately opened up to him, and their tongues brushed against each other, and she understood why she'd appeared in the Witch House. This was their setting; this was where she loved him and brought him back to life; it was where he'd worried about her; it was where she'd woken from death and been welcomed by the comfort of his arms; this had been their getaway, their hideout while the fight with Klaus had been brewing in her future. This was where they'd first loved each other, him gentle and questioning because she'd just come back from death, and her reassuring and needing him all around her, needing the comfort of his body because she was alive again and wasn't sure how long that would last.

She'd realized she loved him then. As she'd climaxed and he'd huffed above her, she'd realized that she was in love with him. And she hadn't told him for the same reason she had considered breaking up with him the night of the sixties decade dance: she might die soon. She was undertaking a dangerous goal, and she felt like she was dragging him along, leading him to suffering and heartbreak. She couldn't truly fathom why he stayed.

She had decided to call him and tell him not to pick her up, that she'd meet him at school, that they should cool things off and wait until her fight with Klaus was over.

And she'd reneged on that decision because of one reason, a simple text: _I'm on my way. _

She'd sat on her bed in her go-go boots, psychedelic dress and bouffant, and she'd re-read the text carefully, all four words, four single syllables. She had a boyfriend, and he was on his way to pick her up. He was still coming to pick her up, despite the calling that might lead her to her tomb that night. She was happy with Jeremy; she wanted to be with him; she loved that he wanted to be with her.

Something had unfurled in her heart right then, but she'd pushed back against it. She might be dying. No reason to think about the road her heart wanted to reveal to her.

It was the sensible thing to break up with Jeremy. It was the selfless thing, set him free, free from worrying about her, free from impending heartache. Her mission was a burden on him; he wasn't happy with it. It was better to let him go, carry this out by herself.

But he was on his way. Despite everything, he was on his way. He'd dressed up, and he was on his way, and that made her happy. He made her happy. So she decided to forget about selflessness. Maybe it would be better for Jeremy to be free, but she might be dead by the end of the night, and he made her happy. She wanted to be happy if this was going to be her last night. She wanted to go on a date with her boyfriend.

So with a muted smile, she'd texted: _"Okay."_

Bonnie opened her eyes and smiled because Jeremy was peppering kisses along her lips. She'd never told him that story. She'd never told him she loved him. They'd broken up a couple of months later.

"For me?" he asked again.

"Yes," she said, and the empty Witch House seemed to become even cleaner.

She'd put her happiness ahead of an imposed sense of duty, once. She wanted to do it again. She can kill someone to bring him back.

"I miss you." She touched his black shirt and remembered that he'd been wearing it when he told her that she was in control. "I miss you a lot."

"I miss you, too," he said and stroke her cheek, his other hand around her waist and at the small of her back. He smiled a sad smile. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" She frowned because she heard the sadness in his voice. Their emotions pressed against all corners of the house until it seemed to grow larger.

"For taking so long. For missing out."

She closed her eyes because his sadness quickly became overwhelming.

"I wanted to go slow," he chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I didn't want to scare you away; I wanted to ease back into things. I wanted us to get back together."

She opened her eyes, and her disembodied voice moaned in anguish.

"I wanted to be with you again. I messed up and I wanted to make up for it however you wanted. I thought we-_I_-had time. I was freaking wrong," he chuckled. "I love you, Bonnie."

She grabbed his neck and stood on her toes, and he bent his head so that their foreheads touched.

"I love you _so much_," he confessed at last.

"Then come back," she cried.

"I can't-"

"Please _stop_ thinking about how hard it'll be for me." She looked up at him, and her pain shone through. "Stop trying to be selfless," she chuckled and remembered sitting in her room and staring at a cell phone the night of the sixties dance. "Tell me what you want. Don't think about what killing will do to me or how I can't handle it, because I can, Jeremy. Because you're worth it. I can kill someone to bring you back. _You're worth it_."

"I killed Shane," she said quickly when he started to shake his head.

"What?"

"And Vaughn and Katherine. They're all dead. I squeezed Shane's heart in his chest; I gave Vaughn an aneurysm. It was a spell, and I made him stand there, locked his feet to the ground while I came up with it. And I burned Katherine to a pile of ash on that damn beach while she was trying to escape. They're all back there on the island: _dead_."

"I told you I'd kill Shane if he laid a finger on either one of us," she said softly when he stared open-mouthed at her.

"How did you make it out?" he wondered.

"Silas healed me. He healed me and left me in the cave, and I didn't see him again until after I'd killed Katherine."

She'd tried to go back to Jeremy's body, but she'd run into Shane. She'd panicked, but he'd told her who he really was: Silas. He'd told her that Jeremy's body was gone, taken by a group of people that she knew included Elena.

"So tell me what you want, Jeremy. Because that random person getting to live isn't what's going to make me feel better. I want you back. I...I love you, too," she said softly.

Jeremy tilted his head toward her to make sure he'd heard her right.

A smile tugged at her lips. "I love you, too," she repeated. "And I want you back."

"I do want to come back. I'm not at peace here. I hear Kol's looking for me; his entire line is here, and most of them are looking for me. I wanna be alive again. I can stay dead," he reiterated. "But I'd rather be alive. I wanna live; there are things I want to do; there are things I want to see. I want to live to see the after: after the bullcrap, after Klaus is dead and all of this is over. Because there has to be a life after Klaus, right? _But_,"

Bonnie tightened her lips.

"I'm not willing to do that at any cost, especially not at the cost of you killing someone."

"You seem to be more worried about me killing than someone dying," she mused in amusement.

His mouth twitched with a contained smile, and then he got serious. He stroke her cheek with his knuckles and said, "Your heart hurts. I'd do anything to fix that. I want you to be happy, Bonnie."

"Anything?" She kissed him softly on the lips when he avoided her eyes. "You deserve to be just as alive as I am. What happened to you wasn't fair. You don't deserve it. And whoever it is that I choose to kill won't deserve it either, but I'm okay with that. I'm not okay with you being dead. I'll deal with killing someone. It won't break me, I promise. Just...this is the life we're living; these are the cards we're dealt. I hate it; I wish it wasn't happening, but I'm just...trying to shuffle the cards and deal them back out." She chuckled.

Jeremy gave her an eskimo kiss, brushing the tip of his nose against hers. "Do it."

He was prepared to help her deal with the fallout.

"Bring me back."


	3. High School: Best Years of Your Life

**A/N: babyshan211, I'm so flattered that you've read pretty much all my stories for the different Bonnie pairings. Sometimes I forget that you're a Bamon fan. Lol. **

**Thank you, everyone, for your reviews! It's criminal how few Beremy stories there are :(.**

* * *

**High School: Best Years of Your Life**

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

She's been repeating the mantra since she and Abby came up with the resurrection spell, every day between midnight and three am, and then again at dawn.

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

Now that she knew Jeremy wanted to come back, her voice was stronger, her heart fuller.

She gave herself two days after her trip to the OtherSide. Today was the day she would bring Jeremy back. It was dawn; the sun was coming up, and she walked around in a precise circle in her room, her arms bent at the elbow and extended in front of her, her eyes focused on her next step. _"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

The words were touchstones for her spell and ritual. They centered her. With them, she had already started the spell to bring Jeremy back. This spell was the Milky Way galaxy, and the resurrection spell she'd written for Jeremy was the solar system.

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

Abby was waiting for her in the kitchen when she finished. Bonnie made the knockout powder that Abby had used on her once (different from the one that had also served to mute her powers the first time she'd met her). She ground the herbs in the mortar as Abby monitored her work, and she thought about if things were different. If things were different, Abby would be telling her stories of when she'd stood in her childhood kitchen and prepared herbs, potions, and spells while Sheila watched and told her stories of when _she_ was under the tutelage of her mother Ernestine.

She and Abby would be laughing or at least smiling as they shared stories of Sheila, as Bonnie asked questions, as Abby told her about the best herbal powder she'd ever made.

But things were as they were, and she made the powder without flaw. It was smooth and a rich green, and she thought of fairy dust.

"Now you infuse it with magic by saying 'Dormeo.' This is what will knock them out cold, where no noise or bump, not even thunder, will wake them. Not until you say."

"I woke up without a spell when you did it to me. Twice," Bonnie pointed out with a frown.

"My hands were light with some of the herbs. I have a shelf full of sleeping powder. I always carry-_carried_-one with me. And I used the only one I had on you a couple of weeks ago."

"How many people were you going around knocking out?" Bonnie asked, light suspicion in her voice.

Abby chuckled. "It's almost as good as mace. Especially for unsuspecting vampires, changelings-"

"Magical daughters," Bonnie sing-songed.

"I'm _sorry_. I really am. Well, I'm sorry for the first time. Not so much the second."

Bonnie narrowed her eyes and then looked at the still powder in the mortar. She raised her chin, pulled on her power and said, "_Dormeo_."

Small crevices broke the surface of the powder, and then it was smooth again. The spell had taken hold. She grabbed the small glass salt shaker she had emptied and washed and carefully poured the dark green dust into its content. "The lighter you are with the ingredients, the less green it looks, right?"

"Right," Abby confirmed, and she smiled at Bonnie's correct guess.

"Time to choose a victim," Bonnie said as she put the cap on the salt shaker. She slid a clean jar that used to contain coconut oil over and poured more of the powder, and then she handed it to Abby.

"Do you know who you want?" Abby asked as she closed the jar. "If you hope to do this before twelve, there can't be any doubts."

"A guy," Bonnie answered. "Around your and dad's ages." She couldn't choose someone her age, choosing a child was out of the question, and it seemed especially cruel to choose someone who had made it past sixty-five years old.

She wanted the spell completed before mid day; she wanted it done as close to sunrise as possible. Abby was going to get the sacrifice; she was going to dig up Jeremy's body.

/

Bonnie squeezed the salt shaker in her hand to reassure herself that it was there. The powder she carried was mostly just in case. No one should be at the cemetery this early in the day.

She knew Jeremy was buried in the Gilbert plot. She hadn't been at the burial and neither had Elena. With her switch off, Elena had told the Salvatores, "Buried one family member, buried them all. I don't need to see it."

Matt had shown up to her doorstep, and she'd turned him away with a short and concise, "No." She'd still been reeling from what she'd seen in the news two days before, and why go when Jeremy wouldn't be long under the soil?

The people who attended Jeremy's burial were Matt, Caroline, Damon, Stefan, and Liz Forbes.

Now Bonnie walked the path to the Gilbert headstones. Jeremy had been alive the last time she'd walked this path. He'd been holding Elena's hand with his left while Bonnie had held his right hand. They'd all been walking slow then, conscious of John and Jenna's loss with every step. They had paid respect with every step.

Her steps were quick this time around. She was right: there was no one at the cemetery, but her fortune could change any minute, so she did a power walk and jog combination while keeping her eyes alert for any moving bodies. She'd broken into a run by the time she reached the Gilbert plot and was confused by what she saw.

Jeremy didn't have a headstone. She walked across and made sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. Jenna Sommers, John Gilbert, Miranda Gilbert, Grayson Gilbert. There should be a headstone marked Jeremy Gilbert, but there wasn't. She didn't know that the Salvatores had decided, and Caroline and Matt had agreed, that leaving Jeremy's plot blank was a good idea until Elena could decide to put a headstone (along with some heartfelt words).

Bonnie's mouth dried, but she reassured herself that Jeremy was there. They'd buried him, she knew. She licked her lips and forced saliva from the walls of her mouth, and she focused. She had no shovel. She was going to use her magic. She thought of a conundrum but quickly decided to go with what made the most sense. On which end had they buried Jeremy? Next to Jenna or next to Grayson?

Next to his and Elena's father made more sense, so she moved to the space next to Grayson's headstone, backed up to give herself enough room, looked around to make sure she was still alone, and she bent her arms at the elbow and held them in front of her, the salt shaker balanced in her hand. Her palms faced the clear blue sky; the sun was still rising from the horizon.

She stretched her fingers and closed her eyes. She monitored her breathing and reached out to the earth. First she connected with the surface, and then she dove below and imagined that she could breath beneath the dirt. It was part of Nature, part of life; she could survive in it, _wield_ it. She snapped her hands into fists, and remembered how the surface of the powder had been disturbed earlier. She slowly opened her eyes and fisted her hands tighter, the nails of one hand digging into her palms, the fingers of the other squeezing the salt shaker, and she felt the ground shifting. She felt it in her heart, in her stomach, in her arms, in her legs. The earth was moving under her, and Jeremy's coffin was rising through it.

She took two steps back, holding her fists still, and she tried to picture Jeremy's coffin. What color was it, how big was it, what material was it made of, how much had it cost? She hoped the Salvatores had splurged.

The surface shook now, grains of dirt rolled and slid, the grass rose, and more dirt spilled out. They rose and spilled, rose and spilled, and she held her breath when she spotted a corner of the sleek, steel black funerary box. It was dirty and worms rolled off of it, but she could gauge how beautiful it was, and she decided that Jeremy would've approved. The Salvatores had splurged after all.

She took the coffin out of the hole completely so that it levitated off the ground. She stretched her right hand, the one holding the powder, and took hold of it with her telekinesis and let her other arm relax. She moved it inches to the left and set it on firm ground. She didn't look around to make sure she was still alone; instead, she wondered what she'd see when she opened the coffin. Jeremy, yes, but what would he look like? She tried to envision the worse, but all she kept coming up with was the intact face of the guy she'd seen on the OtherSide.

She walked around so that she stood inches away from the coffin's opening, and she debated between opening it with her hands and using her power. She'd never opened a coffin before. How heavy was the lid? Was there a latch? So she decided to use her power.

Wielding her telekinesis once more, she extended her right hand and flicked her wrist up with flair. The bottom half of the coffin opened, and one fly lazily flew out. Bonnie gulped and closed her eyes. Right, coffins have two lids. She'd hoped to get it over with in one swoop.

Focusing on the top half, she threw it open and the whole coffin rocked from the momentum. Blinking fast, she slowly walked up to it and bit the inside of her lip when the smell of decaying flesh seeped into her nostrils.

Jeremy has been dead for three weeks, almost four, and, when she looked into the coffin, the patches of hair that remained on his scalp were stringy. That was the most disturbing part to her, and she wondered why. Creepy black things crawled along the coffin's dirty white interior; Jeremy's chest wasn't moving; his arms were crossed, and he looked liked he was sleeping except he was entirely too still. It was like there'd never been any life in him, like he'd never been animated. Looking at her grandmother's lifeless body hadn't been this hard. Sheila had been clean; her hair had still contained some shine. But Jeremy's were stringy, a dull black now, and something with a short, round body crawled out of his left nostril.

Maybe she focused on his hair first and foremost in order to avoid taking in the state of his skin. He looked nothing like the consciousness that had stood before her on the OtherSide. She saw raw pink on his eyelids where the fire had eaten away at the skin. The majority of the skin on top of his left hand was gone. What was supposed to be under the skin was exposed to the elements, and she could see the bones of his index finger, middle finger, and part of his ring finger.

She looked at his suit and wondered at the disfigurement it hid. Had they dressed him carefully? A rove beetle landed on top of her right cheek, and she jerked the back of her hand to smack it away, hurting the outer corner of her eye in the process.

She needed to get him out. He didn't have to be here. He shouldn't have been here. If they'd just listened to her, if they'd just trusted her plan, they could've stored his body somewhere, somewhere cold, where it wouldn't have decayed, or at least it would've decayed too slowly to be recognizable.

She levitated his body, and her stomach rolled. More rove beetles. They'd been nesting under his body, perhaps taking a break from feasting on his insides, perhaps too full, perhaps mating in order to share him. They creeped and crawled; their comfort was gone. Another flew at her face and she swatted it away. She held Jeremy's body with her mind and held him in front of her as she made her way back to her car.

She didn't look at the body. She kept her head down, and she only thought of one thing: he should've have been here. He shouldn't have been here. He shouldn't have been here.

The joints in Bonnie's legs were taunt; she walked as if she was making her way through tall grass; she lifted her legs unnecessarily high and brought them down unnecessarily hard. He shouldn't have been here.

She looked up when she got to her car. She needed to get him inside and on the rich chocolate brown comforter in the backseat. The putrid body still housed beetles, despite being away from the coffin. Darkling beetles had come out from under his suit to eat the exposed pink flesh in his hand. Bonnie's face grimaced without her consent, and she hit the button to unlock her car doors, levitated him inside-

She needed to fix his legs. They were too long and stuck out of the door. She brought her hands down hard on his ankles, as if someone had dared her to touch him, and she would've sworn that her hands went to sleep on contact. Goosebumps on her skin made her more sensitive to the crisp morning air, and she pushed his leg back and found that that was harder to do when he his muscles couldn't contract. He was beyond the point of rigor mortis. He was-dead weight. Heavy dead weight, and it was all on her to move his legs. She got in the car and inhaled decomposing skin. Smelling death was considerably worse than feeling it.

She bent his legs so that his feet were planted on the now crimped comforter, and she stumbled out of the car, almost falling on her knees in her haste to get away. She wanted to get away from it, the body; it was just a body at the moment; at the moment it wasn't Jeremy, because it was too dead, too burnt, there were insects all over it, its suit was dirty, it smelled foul, and she had dirt on her hands.

But she needed to get in the car.

She jerked her door open, plopped down on her seat, and yanked the door close. She put the key in the ignition and turned, like she'd done many times before, and she pushed the button to lower all of the windows. It would be pointless to turn on the AC. There was no need for the radio.

She wiped her hands on her jeans, put the car in reverse and made her way out of the cemetery.

/

Her chest was warm as she drove the streets of Mystic Falls with a decomposing body in her backseat. She was alert to what was going on around her; she was an observer, perhaps an ethnographer come to this quaint town to observe its people. How ordinary they were, with their car windows up, blasting their air conditioner, talking to the person sitting in the passenger seat, listening to the radio, waiting for the light to turn from yellow to red so that they can cross the street. How normal. How nice.

She was normal, once. She had a dead body in her backseat.

Her hands squeezed the wheel. When was the last time she'd driven with both hands on the wheel? She did now, because she had a dead body in her backseat.

What lengths she was going to. And for what? For some semblance of normality? Raise the dead so that life can be just a little normal. How odd.

Red light. There was one car on her right and one on her left.

She was going to bring Jeremy back so that she could be happy, and so that he could be happy. Did it really matter, though? Happiness. Her happiness. She was sitting in her car with a body that had become sustenance for maggots and flies and beetles. Her car would probably smell for days if not weeks; she definitely would not forget what she'd seen in the cemetery for a long time; she was going to throw out her comforter after this; the person Abby was choosing to sacrifice had probably had plans to go to the car wash later today. Maybe that person had been happy, and she was about to kill him, and for what? Just because happiness was such a complicated thing for her? Just because, for some reason, unlike her mother and her grandmother, and probably her great-grandmother, _happiness_ was so-fucking-hard-to reach and to hold on to.

Happiness. She had to dig it out and put life back into it.

Green light.

Prom was in maybe two weeks and couple of days. Two days? Three, four? She wished she knew. She wished that prom was the most important event happening in her life so that she knew exactly how far away it was. She didn't have a dress. She just realized. She didn't have a dress for prom. Had she known she wouldn't be attending? Had she subconsciously realized that God, the Goddess, the spirits, or whoever would arrange it so that she wouldn't be able to go?

The last time she'd thought about prom was...homecoming. She'd seen flyers about homecoming around school and she'd thought about how Jeremy probably wasn't going to use his ticket on her anymore, and then she'd thought about the fact that she didn't have a date locked in for prom anymore.

Normal people go to prom. Normal people who don't have rove beetles flying into their face two weeks and some days before prom. Their cars don't smell like a body way past rigor mortis had been in there. She wished she was normal. She wished she could go back to when she was normal, when happiness was as easy to reach for her as it was for the guy she was about to kill.

Back when she was normal, Jeremy's heart had been beating.


	4. Apocatastasis

**A/N: How badly did JP and her idiot writers cheat us out of that Beremy reunion last episode after giving us so many feelings with the Beremy-adjacent scenes in 4.19? Ugh, I'm still mad.**

**But enjoy this chapter where Bonnie's actually focusing on what SHE wants!**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Apocatastasis**

Bonnie was wired when she got to the entrance of the woods. She parked her car in the empty lot. She'd hoped that Abby's car would be there, hoped during her smelly ride from the cemetery that she wouldn't have any more alone time with Jeremy's dead body than she needed.

But it made sense that Abby had yet to arrive. While Bonnie had known exactly where she was going and who she was going for, Abby had the task of finding a stranger in a place that would provide her a cover. Bonnie had suggested she go to a gas station, but Abby had nixed the idea, reasoning that gas stations tended to have people milling about on foot and waiting for who knows what early in the morning.

Bonnie looked in the rearview mirror for the first time since she'd left the cemetery. She bent the visor so that she could see Jeremy instead of what was behind her car. He looked as bad as he smelled. She threw the car door opened and got out, her movement unhurried. She paced away from it and told herself to breathe normally now. She'd resorted to breathing in segments during her drive, holding her breath for as long as possible and then exhaling through her mouth, because she couldn't take the smell of him hitting her nose.

Even though she was out in the open now, she still smelled him. Then she realized that she smelled _of_ him. He was on her clothes, on her hands, in her hair. Putting her windows down hadn't helped any, though she wondered how much worse it would've been if she'd kept the windows up.

She retreated inside her head and went over her list of spells: the one to heal his epidermis, the one to make the offering of the sacrifice to the spirit world, and the one to resurrect him. Thinking of the sacrifice, she walked back to the car, imagined torching it after all of this was done, and she stuck her upper body into the car and grabbed her notebook that lay on the passenger seat. Then she opened the glove compartment and retrieved the eight inch chef's knife she'd gotten from her kitchen.

Her father had a thing for kitchen knives. They had gorgeous (and some were expensive) sets. She'd actually had to go over their inventory and decide which chef's knife to choose. Abby had been impressed and had thought to herself that Rudy could buy Bonnie at least three semesters' worth of college books if he sold all of the knives.

Bonnie had gone with the Miyabi Kaizen chef's knife. She could've chosen one of their less expensive ones, but her dad's obsession with kitchen knives was diluted into a simple liking for her, and she _liked_ the Miyabi Kaizen set. It was her favorite. Her dad's favorite was the Wüsthof Classic collection, so she'd decided that choosing a knife from that set was off limits.

The knife was wrapped in newspaper. She had always liked how it felt in her palm, the handle, the way the steel gleamed, and the sharp point. The sharp point that she was going to plunge into someone's heart in less than thirty minutes.

The three subject notebook she held was her makeshift grimoire. It contained the spells she'd written under Abby's guidance. She'd bought the book right after she'd come into possession of Jonas Martins' thirty-eight grimoires. She was still making her way through the collection, the collection she'd shortly realized was partly stolen. She was only on the third book, due to frequent distractions in the form of actually needing to put her powers to use to solve the problems Stefan and Damon brought to her. She took notes in the book, attempted to make her own version of some of the spells, wrote the names of herbs and their different uses, their different mixtures, what to avoid, and sometimes she wrote down the things she felt and thought while performing some spells, like the one she'd used to send Vicky Donovan back to the OtherSide.

Bonnie tucked the book under her right arm and opened the backseat door. She levitated Jeremy out and closed and locked all of the doors. Her legs regained their stiffness while she walked through the woods, and she wondered what she looked like. She probably looked worse than the emo kids about whom she and Caroline used to gossip.

She reached the clearing and hoped Abby wouldn't get lost.

She was alone with Jeremy. She floated him down to the ground and looked at him, let his state further brand itself into her mind.

She needed to think about something else. She couldn't spend the entire time waiting for Abby by staring at Jeremy. Not realizing that she still held the notebook and knife, she walked away from him and paced. She wondered if her dad had thought about canceling prom. She'd freaked out about him canceling the eighties dance, but she wouldn't mind him canceling prom. She was woefully unprepared to go to prom.

She wondered what her dad was doing at the moment. Mayoral duties, probably. Maybe looking over the city's finances, its budget and spendings. He might be wondering how everything is going. He'd suggested using his new power to have Liz Forbes dig up Jeremy's body to be exhumed, that way there'd be less things to explain. Unfortunately, he'd realized that they'd need a judge's permission to dig up the body.

She wondered if she should go ahead and heal Jeremy's skin while she waited for Abby. No. That might mess up the ritual. The way she'd imagine it in her head, Jeremy and the sacrifice would be lying next to each other when she said all of the spells. It was probably best not to deviate from that.

She thought about the conversation she'd had with Jeremy on the OtherSide. She kept coming back to a couple of things they'd said: he'd said he loved her. He'd said he wanted to get back together. And she thought about the hints he'd shown to prove that: he'd told her that he didn't mind her taking pictures of his naked chest. There was the time at the lake house. Before that, even, there were times when they would make eye contact, and she would remember how he looked at her when they'd been a couple.

Now Bonnie didn't usually doubt her readings of boys. She was good with boy signs, always able to tell when some guy was crushing on Caroline or Elena. She could even tell when some of these boys were into _her_. She'd been able to tell where Jeremy's head had been at when he'd braved Katherine Pierce in order to keep her from over-exerting herself.

But she'd been burned by Jeremy; he'd thrown her reading of him off course, so when he voiced that he had a desire to protect her, one strong enough to override the leanings that the Hunter's Mark forced on him, when he worried about her doing Dark magic to kill herself in order to bring Elena back, when he carefully bandaged her hand after she cut it falling in the cave, she wondered what it all meant. She'd refused to assume anything, refused to trust anything she felt when it came to his words and gestures. Instead she'd settled on asking herself what it all meant without daring to give herself an answer.

She had the answer now: he'd been thinking of asking her to give him a second chance.

She thought back to the time when she didn't need to question her instincts when it came to Jeremy. When was the last time they'd kissed?

She stopped pacing and stood frowning in the clearing. When _was_ the last time she'd kissed Jeremy? Surely after she came back from summer vacation. The last time she'd kissed Jeremy was when she'd jumped into his arms upon crossing the Gilberts' threshold.

Bonnie didn't think that was right, and yet that was the last time she remembered kissing Jeremy. No later instance came to mind. Probably because he'd been busy trying to deal with Anna's ghost by himself. Oh yeah...they definitely needed to talk.

She heard leaves breaking apart under heavy footsteps, and her heart jumped to such heights that she put the hand holding the knife against her chest. She told herself to calm down, that it was only Abby, that normal people weren't out walking the woods of Mystic Falls this early in the morning. Besides, she'd chosen a spot deep into the woods to ensure they wouldn't be easily discovered.

Abby appeared, and she sighed with relief. Her mother was taller than her, but she was slender, so it was strange to see her lugging a man who was taller and weighed more than her.

"Hey," Abby said, not sounding at all out of breath.

"Hey," Bonnie greeted, and she watched Abby slip the man down her shoulder and gently lay him down. The man's mass didn't cause her to stumble at all. The perks of having vampire strength.

Abby flipped her hair away from her face and saw the state of Jeremy's body. She had offered to retrieve Jeremy's body, thinking that in Bonnie's state the less time she spent with evidence of Jeremy's death, the better. But Bonnie had insisted. Her nose scrunched at the smell of him, and she wondered how much worse it would be if she used her full vampyric smelling ability.

She turned her attention to Bonnie, and there she stood clutching the knife in one hand and her notebook in the other. She looked like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. "Bonnie," Abby said softly and moved toward her.

"It's fine," Bonnie cut her off. "Is he...is he a garbage man?" She forced her feet to move, and she went around to Jeremy's right side, on which the man lay. The man wore a neon green vest.

Abby didn't know if Bonnie was covering up her vulnerability or if she really didn't need her comfort. It wouldn't be the first time she'd refused Abby looking out for her. Even on the day that Bonnie had spent crying and throwing up, Rudy had been the one to hold and comfort her. The soothing words had come from him. She'd looked on, kept her distance, and it had all seemed natural. Even though her heart had ached for Bonnie's suffering, Rudy was the one who raised her. He'd been through things with her, mundane things, arguments, disagreements, annoyances, first days, milestones, things that Abby only knew of because of the six years she'd spent raising Jaime.

Bonnie and Rudy had found a way to get along without her, so when Bonnie clung to Rudy because her clairvoyance had allowed her to see how Jeremy had died, Abby hadn't thought anything of it.

But now, as when Bonnie had vehemently disregarded her warnings about Dark magic, she wondered if she was purposefully being shut out.

"Yes, he's a garbage man. When I was leaving the neighborhood, I saw the truck in my rearview mirror. I parked beside a house and waited for it to get in front of me, and then I followed it. When they were five blocks over, I got out and nabbed the driver while the other two worked in the back."

"Are you sure no one saw you?"

"As sure as I can be. Generally people are not on the look out for something out of the ordinary, esspecially when they've got a routine rooted in their minds. Especially in Mystic Falls, ironically enough."

"Thank you," Bonnie said sincerely.

Abby nodded and wiped her hands on her light grey skinny jeans.

Bonnie took a deep breath and remembered that she held the knife. It was almost time. "Um," she began and looked at Abby. "I can do this...by myself. It's fine," she assured when it looked like Abby was going to protest. "I can do it on my own."

"You don't have to," Abby said. After how much Bonnie cried and how out of it she'd been the past couple of weeks while remaining impressively focused with a one track mind, Abby was perturbed about the amount of time Bonnie had had to spend with Jeremy's burnt body.

"I'll be fine. I can do this. I'm ready; I'm prepared."

Knowing that arguing was fruitless, Abby nodded and then said, "Call me if you need anything. I'll be waiting by the cars."

"Thanks," Bonnie said again.

Abby sped off. The cars were in her supernatural sight when she stopped. Concentrating, she sped back and nailed the stop: she didn't stumble, didn't bump into anything, and she ruffled as little of the leaves, sticks, and dirt as possible. She didn't take a single step for fear that she'd alert Bonnie to her presence. And from her vantage point, she watched.

Bonnie crouched and set the knife and notebook down. The man in front of her had a stomach that was enlarged by a steady diet of soda beverages. He had blonde hair shaved close to his skull; he was her father's age, as she'd wanted, and he had a natural rosiness in his cheeks that had paled over the years due to the amount of time he spent outdoors.

The sun beat on her shoulder blades. Her window was closing. She reminded herself of the steps she needed to take, the literal steps she needed to take. She needed to walk, needed to forge a circle with her feet the same way she'd been doing in her bedroom, so she faced forward, her right ankle next to the sacrifice's body, and she proceeded to walk clockwise. Arms bent at the elbows and extended in front of her, she started the ritual:

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat." _

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

_"Natura renovat. Natura renovat."_

She stopped in front of Jeremy and meticulously got down on her knees. Extending her right hand toward her notebook, she floated it to her. She flipped to the page with the spell to repair Jeremy's skin, and a small excitement picked at her. By the twelve pm, Jeremy would be able to talk to her.

She looked at his charred skin and pictured his face and body as she last saw it: whole, spotless except for some beauty marks. She was going to make him that way again.

Sitting back on her calves, she repositioned her hands in front of her, bent at the elbows. No matter her emotional state, no matter how tired her body was, her voice always conveyed authority and confidence when she chanted a spell, and this time was no different. The self-deprecation she'd gone through in the car took a backseat, and she was a witch in charge of the elements, able to morph them with her will however she saw fit. Her tongue rolled the Rs; it pressed against her teeth when she hissed the Ss; her lips puckered when she pronounced the Us, and as the strength of her voice forced Jeremy's skin to heal, so did the dead things in the forest heal: the leaves in trees bloomed green, the barks grew in strength, the soil looked darker, moist, the scant pieces of grass around her became numerous and lush so that both Jeremy and the sacrifice lay on the bed of life.

_"Natura renovat. Sicut mortuis cutis effundit, renovateur. Vita mors, et repondit circuli pergit. Vitam mortem reponit et, cute renovat. Vitam et mortem cedit cutem emendat. Isti revertatur ad ardet, cicatrices! Haec vulnera vitae cedere! Cedere ad vitam! Cedere ad vitam! Isti revertatur ad ardet, cicatrices! Haec vulnera vitae cedere! Cedere ad vitam!CEDERE AD VITAM! CEDERE AD VITAM!"_

Jeremy's burns turned from black, to red, to dark pink, to pale pink, to scars, and the closer he got to his true self the more Bonnie's voice rose until she was screaming him into completion, yelling at his body, shouting the proof of death away, away from her eyesight, away from her memory. She wanted the bugs gone, the flies, the beetles; he wasn't their home anymore. He wasn't a dead thing; he was coming back to life. He was healing.

The skin repaired itself so that he was whole again, his face smooth again save for some beauty marks, and his hair...she looked at his hands, and she could see no bone. The way it was supposed to be. She smiled and swallowed the lump in her throat.

Barely breathing and keeping her eyes on Jeremy, she stood with the notebook and moved clockwise towards the sacrifice. She descended onto her knees again and unsheathed the Miyabi Kaizen. It was heavier than it was a minute ago. She held it tight at her side and said:

_"Vigilaveris."_

The man remained aslumber, and she faltered. He was supposed to wake up.

_"Vigilaveris," _she pressed, but the man's stomach rose and fell steadily. This was the spell that Abby had given her; it's the spell Abby always used to awaken her preys.

She couldn't kill the man while he was sleeping; she didn't want to. That wasn't how she imagined it. She was going to steal his life for her purpose, and she owed him her face. He should know why he was going to die; he should get a chance to be scared; he should get a last thought. She'd been close to death before. Twice. And everyone deserved a last thought.

"Wake up," she pleaded softly.

Abby forced herself not to move from her spot. Bonnie needed to get it, and she needed to get it on her own.

Bonnie closed her eyes and tried not to feel let down. She couldn't kill him like a coward, but she wasn't going to let the opportunity to bring Jeremy back pass her by. Trying one more time, she opened her eyes wide and screamed down at him, _"Vigilaveris! WAKE UP!"_

His eyes flew open, and she was exposed to pale blue irises. The man's next breath caught in his throat and he cleared it, snorting a little in his throat, as if he truly was waking from eight hours of sleep. Bonnie held herself still while he recuperated. She moved the knife onto her lap.

The man noticed her and quickly sat up. He chuckled nervously at her presence and rigid face and looked around. He saw Jeremy lying next to him and moved to stand. Bonnie quickly threw out her left hand and forced him to sit.

"Hey! Hey," he laughed again. "What's going on? Where am I? What's-"

"You're in the woods. In Mystic Falls." Maybe he thought he was dreaming.

That part sounded familiar to him. Mystic Falls. He'd been at work. He'd been at the wheel yet it felt like he'd been in the woods all along. He hadn't brought himself to the woods, so the situation felt surreal. He was waiting for something that made sense.

Bonnie moved her left hand toward the ground, and the man was forced onto his back.

"Hey! What's-what's going on? Where am I? I don't understand. How did I get here?"

"You were brought here. You were drugged," Bonnie explained matter-of-factly.

The man still had trouble understanding. She was a teenage girl, how could she have drugged him? He didn't remember ever seeing her.

"I'm going to kill you."

"What?" He smiled as if a punchline was coming.

"To wake him up," she nodded her head toward Jeremy.

He noticed now that Jeremy's suit was dirty. He noticed now that Jeremy smelled. He cringed away and tried to get up, but he was rooted to the ground. He looked to Bonnie and she wielded the biggest knife he could ever remember seeing.

"Woah, wait a minute! Wait, wait. You don't have to do this. Please? He's not gonna wake up. He's dead. If he's dead he's dead, and nothing will change that."

"He'll wake up," she insisted. "I'm a witch. I have magical powers. Killing you won't be in vain, I promise. This isn't some weird ritual. This is true. This is magic. And he'll wake up as soon as you die," she said softly.

"No. No, please; you can't do this. He won't wake up," he said, looking at Jeremy. "You're making a mistake!" he yelled when he saw Bonnie raise the knife with both hands. "I have a kid!"

Bonnie's eyes fleeted over to him.

"Oh my God. I have a baby, a baby girl. She's only a month old, and her name's Ellna. I didn't say goodbye to her this morning. I didn't say goodbye before I left; I almost turned back but I decided to go anyway, because I'd make it up to her when I saw her later. I never leave without saying goodbye, oh my God." He banged his head against the floor and battled with his negligence.

"She won't remember you," Bonnie said. She was trying to make him feel better.

"I'm begging you. She is my whole life. My wife-I can't leave them. I'm dieting, and I go on walks with them every night, and we're making plans for how we're both gonna be there with her while she grows up. We _just_ got into a routine with the baby. It _just_ became easy. I'm begging you."

"I _have_ to kill you."

"No, you don't. We can talk." His blue eyes were huge as they implored her. "I can help you."

"I'm sorry about your baby and your wife. I really am. They'll move on. But I can't lose him. _I_ can't move on again. I wish this didn't have to happen."

"It doesn't! It _doesn't_ have to happen. You can save me!"

The words barged into her brain and tore at her resolve. She can save him. She could save him. She could save him and then he'd go home to his baby and his wife and continue striving to achieve his plans for the future. He'd go home and resume being happy, and it would be because of her. It would be because she was merciful. She could be merciful and a little girl would grow up with both her parents.

She can keep the family whole, and while they were off being whole, she would-she would-

Jeremy's first response when she'd told him she could bring him back was a firm "No." He hadn't wanted her to take the risk. _"I can stay dead,"_ he'd said.

Yes, he could stay dead. Life was unfair. People died too early all the time. She wanted to force death on this man, and for what? The state of her life wasn't his fault. Her unhappiness wasn't his fault. Why should she rob him of his? She stared at him and how quickly his chest rose and fell. He was someone's happiness. The month-old little girl who didn't have a single memory of him yet-he was her happiness.

She can try again. She can accept the cards she's been dealt and try again. Leave Jeremy be and try to be happy again. How long would it take? Where would her happiness come from? Would it be enough? Would she ever be whole again? The scars from her grandmother's death still open so easily. The slightest scratch, the slightest betrayal, the slightest hiccup with her magic, and she remembers how different her life is because Sheila is dead. The spirits are alive, and they crowd her. Spirits talk, spirits are aware, spirits feel. There is another side and it brushes against the side of the living.

If she let the hurt from Jeremy's death turn into new scars, would they ever heal? Her life hasn't been charmed since Sheila died. What would it look like if Jeremy stayed dead? How would she move, how would she feel, how would she speak? What would she look like?

She'd been so convinced when she'd spoken to Jeremy on the OtherSide: _"I can kill someone."_

She was faced with that choice now and suddenly it was better the man live than she be happy.

She smiled, and her smile turned into a grimace and fat tears spilled over her cheeks. She knew what she wanted, but she didn't know how to have it at any cost. She'd gotten very used to sacrificing, to doing for others. She could save this man. Saving and providing happiness and opportunities felt more familiar, felt more comfortable now, than _having_ happiness. Scars burned, but she'd had plenty of opportunities to get used to having them.

"Bonnie."

She looked up at the sound of Abby's voice and quickly wiped her tears.

Abby got on her knees on Jeremy's side and sat on her calves, at eye level with Bonnie. "What's the matter?" The man had started pleading with her as soon as she'd appeared, begging her to help him. She'd quickly tuned him out, which is exactly what Bonnie needed to do if she hoped to get Jeremy back.

"I can't do it," Bonnie said bitterly, avoiding Abby's eyes.

"You don't want to anymore?"

"I want to, but I can't-He doesn't have anything to do with this," she said sadly.

"But this is the spell we came up with."

"I know. I know this is the only _consequence-free _way," and the tone of her voice said that it was anything but consequence-free.

"Jeremy's waiting for you," Abby said softly.

"And I don't want to leave him there." She sniffed and wiped her tears.

"And you don't want to kill this man. I understand. It's no different when you're killing for an altruistic reason." When Bonnie looked at her, she continued, "Killing to desiccate an Original and save a town or killing to bring a loved one back: you're still choosing someone who had _nothing _to do with the situation, someone who most likely doesn't believe in magic, or witches, or vampires."

"Who did you choose?"

"A little boy," Abby said thickly. "He was probably in high school. I came up with the spell myself and grabbed the first boy I saw: a little Black boy." One of her many thoughts after committing the act had been about the fact that she'd chosen well: the boy would be reported missing after a time, but how much effort would be put in trying to find him? Not that much. In the end it would be up to the family to decide whether or not he was dead. But now wasn't the time to give Bonnie every single detail of her thought process at the time.

"He had a future," she continued. "One that I wouldn't have let _anyone_ try to take away from _you_. And while I walked as far away from Mystic Falls as possible, I thought about how I wanted you to live to be a high-schooler and then a college student and then a career woman and then whatever you wanted to be."

Bonnie considered the man in front of her and understood what Abby was saying. If someone came to her and asked for her help in order to stop a witch who wanted to sacrifice a human, she would help; she would stop the witch. She'd been disgusted with Shane for killing twenty-four people. _She _was someone who needed to be stopped right now. She wouldn't stand for anyone doing what she wanted to do, but she wanted to do it for herself.

"This life-we get used to giving," Abby continued. "Bennett witches, we always seem to be on the side that gives, that saves, that gets involved. We don't know how to stay out of it, and we can stay as far away from the next generation as possible," she said, referring to herself and Bonnie, "but that..._trait..._still gets passed down."

"That curse, you mean," Bonnie said as she wiped her cheeks.

"You say that because you give too much. I'm serious. You'll never stop wanting things for yourself. You won't want them twenty-four-seven or every day, or even every month. But you will want them. You _have_ to allow things for yourself, Bonnie. Take it from me. If you keep pushing it down, if you keep prioritizing _doing _before _having_, you will blow up. And when you do, when you _finally_ push yourself to _have_, you could end up hurting people, people that you cherish. It doesn't happen suddenly, you know. It builds. You're finding that out just like I did. You want Jeremy back: _take_ him back. _Have_ him. Or don't and shelve it in preference of giving, giving, giving until you die miserable. And let me tell you something: a Bennett witch hasn't died miserable since _times _were miserable for us and people who looked like us."

Bonnie knew the restlessness of which Abby spoke. She looked into the woman's brown eyes and wondered not for the first time if she could walk away like she did. The meager days she'd spent with Abby, she'd thought she was a coward for abandoning her and her father. She'd been surprised at how caustic her resentment of the woman had been. Because she'd spent all of her life pretending Abby was dead, her way of dealing with the fact that the adults in her life, her father and grandmother, refused to talk about Abby, to explain anything about the situation to her, she'd felt that pretending Abby was dead meant she had no feelings about her whatsoever. _"There's nothing to talk about,"_ she'd told Elena.

But when she'd been forced to work with Abby, when she'd had to listen to her and deal with the fact that she _did_ exist and she had a past and she had a present, a life, pain, regret, all the things that made a person, her resentment had come swift and punishing. And for the first time in her life she'd acknowledged feelings that meant her mother was anything but dead: she resented Abby for leaving, looked down on her for leaving, thought she was better able to handle the craft than Abby was because while Abby cowered and spoke insecure words about being punished by the spirits for leaving, Bonnie stayed and dealt with the pain. Bonnie was better and stronger, because she stayed and absorbed the pain.

And then the pain she'd had to absorb had came from people who routinely sought her out for help. And as she'd sat over Abby's death bed, waiting for her to wake up, waiting to deal with her reward for staying, a million thoughts had bloomed in her mind, chief of which was: she wondered what it would be like to leave. Abby had been contrite about leaving, _yet she'd stayed away_. Leaving had decreased the chances of her lying in a bed in transition to become a vampire. Leaving had decreased the chances of Abby losing people.

When bad things happened to Bonnie now, she imagined being in another place and living another life which is why she'd told her dad she wanted to move if Jeremy refused to come back.

She wiped her tears and told Abby, "I want him back. I want him back."

"Then _have _him. You can do it. And you won't forget _how _you did it. I promise. You won't forget this man."

Bonnie's resolve returned and her grip tightened on the knife. She looked down at the squirming man with the large, frightened blue eyes and thought one thing: she was someone who needed to be stopped.

But she wanted Jeremy back. No one was going to _give _her this; she needed to take it. Jeremy was waiting for her. And as she quickly undid the man's light green vest in order to rid his chest of the extra layer, she thought of a second thing:

She hated the spirits, God, the Goddess, whoever or whatever was watching over this, whoever or whatever was deciding not to give her a break.

The Miyabi Kaizen gleamed when she positioned it over the man's heart. She tuned him out completely, tuned out his yells, his squirming, and the panicked rise and fall of his chest.

She pressed down on the knife, her arms stiff in trepidation of what was about to happen. She leaned on it, and her eyes widened when it went through. It wasn't seamless yet it was at the same time. She pierced through skin and tissue, and the knife tore its way into the man.

She drove the knife down to the handle, until the side of her hand rested on his chest, and suddenly everything came back. Her eyes grew big as saucers as the man's sputter registered in her ears, as he flailed from the pain.

"I did it," she said breathlessly, her eyes glued to the knife. "I did it; it's in. It's in. He's dying; he's dying."

"_Yes,_" Abby said sternly but calmly, hoping to calm Bonnie.

Bonnie's hands fell asleep on her and tingled, and she shuffled away on her knees, away from the dying man. "I killed him."

"You're _killing_ him. You need to complete the spell before he dies. Bonnie. Bonnie!" Abby stood and moved to Bonnie's side. She squatted behind her and cornered Bonnie between her legs and firmly grasped her arms. _"Hey,"_ she whispered. "It's okay. This is what's supposed to happen. You _need_ to calm down so that you can finish the spell or else he'll die for nothing. You _need_ to snap out of it."

"I know," Bonnie said shakily, her mouth dry. She swallowed past it and winced at the sharp pain. She reached for the knife and pulled it out, remembering Abby's advice. He'll bleed out faster this way. She got goosebumps at how his body spasmed when she yanked the knife out. The Miyabi Kaizen no longer gleamed. It was dulled by red.

She carefully placed the knife vertically on his chest, grabbed her notebook, and stood. Abby stood too and moved a couple of paces from the scene, present but not part of the spell.

Bonnie roughly flipped the pages. She was close. It was time to make her offering and take Jeremy back.

She walked clockwise over to Jeremy's side and looked again at his reconstructed body. She kneeled close to him and laid her notebook down.

Holding her arms out in front of her, she read from the book.

_"Ego hoc donum spiritus orbem. Unum est, ita quisquam intrare. Vita et mors cycli perstet supplebit. Et hoc non justo. Sit corpus uri et replete terram, et factum est in convallis. Sit corpus uri, et ad cineres et terrae fecunditatem. Nam convallis est in actu."_

Bonnie shivered and folded in on herself. She felt weaker, like she was losing her strength. Her body heated, and her eyes grew heavy as if from a migraine. The words on the page swam before her eyes, and she commanded her body to hold on. This was nothing like the nosebleeds; it simply felt very uncomfortable.

She put a hand to her pounding head, looked up and gasped at what she saw. The man's body was on fire, but that was expected. The spell called for his body to replenish the earth, to fertilize it.

But the woods were dead.

The trees were barren as if it was the harshest, driest winter. The green leaves were brown and cracked, the soil a grey and dry. She whipped her aching head in Abby's direction to make sure she was still standing, and she was. Abby was marveling at the barren woods.

Bonnie had named the spell "_Funeral._" It was a funeral for the sacrifice, a fiery one, and he, along with the knife, burned hot and fast.

She looked at Jeremy, and her heart filled. It was time for the awakening. Of the three, this was the first spell she and Abby had written. This was the only spell she'd memorized so that she wouldn't need to look at the book.

As the sacrifice burned, she shuffled closer to Jeremy and chanted softly from her heart. From the first word to the last word, her voice was soft as if honoring the delicacy in life, in living. Her eyes were warm and imploring, waiting for the first sign of life in his body.

_"Natura renovat. Animam pro anima. Nihil est aeternum, sed naturae cursum. Id ego dico, ut animam pro anima. Spiritum et spiritus nominat offero. Jeremy Gilbert. Et revertetur petere hoc corpus. Redite in herbis virentibus, et in terram bonam, et rore. Spiritum et spiritus nominat offero. Redite in herbis virentibus, et in terram bonam, et rore, Jeremy Gilbert. Est cum sole et luna. Cum luce referri."_

The wind picked up and whipped green and orange leaves into the trees; the soil grew moist and appeared a rich, fertile black. The sacrifice burned to ash, and Bonnie's hair flew from her face as she waited for Jeremy to wake up. For the first time, she touched his skin. He was cold, but she didn't falter. She stared at him, not wanting to miss the moment he came back to life.

He warmed beneath her hand. It was imperceptible: one second he was cold and the next he was warm, room temperature, and she smiled and thought of the sun and marveled at the sleight of hand that magic had played on her. One moment ice cold and foreign, the next warm exactly as she remembered.

"Come back to me, Jeremy. You don't belong over there." His skin was dark with life; blood circulated underneath; gone was the sickly pale Silas had shown her on the island.

"Wake up, Jeremy." Her voice teetered, her emotions on the balance. "Open your eyes," she whispered. She smiled. "You're not dead anymore."

She rested her left hand on his heart, just like she'd done when she opened Silas' tomb, just like she'd done in his living room when she'd almost channeled him, just like she'd done in his bedroom the night Jonas Martin had given her her powers back.

His chest rose and fell under her hands, his heart beat against her palm, and she wanted to collapse from the anticipation.

"Open your eyes. Look at me."

Jeremy inhaled and felt the hand on his chest. It didn't press on him, but he was extremely aware of it. He could hear shuffling. He heard a voice, and he knew he wasn't alone.

It was hard to open his eyes, but he needed to do it, felt it was important, but it also felt like it had been a while since he eyes had opened. He felt like he was trapped in a deep and dreamless sleep, and he wanted to panic, but the voice and the hand...they felt very familiar, very important.

"Open your eyes, Jeremy."

He exhaled and suddenly his slumber wasn't so deep anymore. He swallowed and opened his mouth, and then...he opened his eyes.

It was a blink. His plush lashes lifted from his cheeks, and he quickly blinked. "Bonnie," he murmured, because even though his spirit reconnecting with his body created confusion, because going from ethereal to earthly created a moment of incomprehension and slowness, a memory barged into his brain. "Bonnie."

"Yes, I'm here," Bonnie said hurriedly. "I'm here." She smiled, and hovered over him and framed his face with her hands. "I'm here, Jeremy. You're back. You're alive."

"You're here," he said slowly.

"_You're_ here."

"Bonnie." He lifted his hand and covered one of hers on his face. She was here. He remembered. He'd been waiting for her; he'd been gone, and he'd been waiting to see her again, and she'd come, and then she'd left, and now she'd brought him to her side. She hadn't let him go. She was here.

* * *

Jeremy wasn't dismayed at the pile of ash sinking into the ground. Everything stunk: it smelled of burnt flesh; his suit was disgusting and dirty and putrid, and he wanted to take a shower.

He looked at the ash until it disappeared completely, but he stayed aware of Bonnie. She'd killed whoever that had been.

"Come on," she pulled at him and helped him up. "We need to go."

"Are you okay?" Abby asked.

"I'm fine," he answered, though he still felt light, like gravity wasn't affecting him completely yet.

"Let's go, then," Bonnie said, staring up at him. She wrapped an arm around his middle and put one of his arms around her shoulders.

"Okay," he answered, and Bonnie nodded and led the way, routinely glancing up at him.

"I told Rudy I'd meet him after you did the spell, but I don't have to go right away-" Abby said when they reached the cars.

"We'll be fine," Bonnie assured her.

Abby glanced at Jeremy. She'd never seen a resurrection before.

Jeremy nodded in support of Bonnie.

"Call me if you need anything," she told Bonnie.

Bonnie nodded, and unlocked her car. Abby walked to the passenger side and put Bonnie's notebook in the glove compartment.

When Bonnie closed the passenger door after Jeremy got in, Abby softly asked her, "Are you okay?"

Bonnie smiled. "I don't know yet. But it worked. He's here."

Abby smiled. "It worked."

Dangling her keys, Bonnie walked around to the driver's side and put the key in the ignition.

* * *

All four windows were down yet the bad smell permeated. Jeremy didn't connect that that was how he'd smelled when he'd been dead.

He glanced at Bonnie, who kept her eyes on the road. Not once did she look over at him. He couldn't wait to get to her house, but then he noticed that the streets were looking a little too familiar.

"Where are we going?"

"Your house," Bonnie said plainly.

He didn't hear the concern from before; there were no whispers. "Why?" he frowned.

"Because you're alive. Oh God, wait, we can't go to your house. I have to take you to the Salvatores'."

"What?"

"Your _sister_." She finally looked at him.

Bonnie looked back at the road and took a deep breath. She'd said it with a smile; she'd sounded excited, but she'd also sounded forceful. "Sorry. You're alive, Jeremy, and there are a couple of people who need to know."

"I wanna go to your house."

She was quiet while she gently put her foot on the break pedal to come to a stop at the red light. She looked at the passenger seat, and Jeremy was staring at her, and she quickly looked forward. Her throat caught. "I just think...she's been a wreck since you died."

"She can come over to your house. Everyone can come over."

"They didn't know I was doing this, so it's going to be a surprise," she said with a half-hearted chuckle.

Even more reason to be at her house, Jeremy figured. A surprise meant a lot of questions and a lot of explanation and probably a lot of confusion. He imagined being crowded on one side of the Salvatore house while Bonnie was crowded on the opposite side. He didn't want to be on opposite sides. With that thought, he reached forward and touched her hand on the wheel. She flinched.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly.

"I'm fine. Sorry," she smiled.

He contemplated her. She was feeling pretty apologetic. This was the second time she'd apologized, and it definitely felt like something was wrong. "Let's go to your house, Bonnie."

Bonnie looked at him again and got lost in his face. He was staring at her, unblinking. He could see her. She swallowed her emotions down, and quietly agreed, "Okay."

* * *

**A/N2: Preview from the next chapter: **"You brought me back to life, and you refuse to look at me?" he joked.


	5. A Flash, Then Nothing: The Usual Pt 1

**A/N: luv4ed There are three reasons why I didn't have Bonnie (or Abby) pick a sick, old person. First, the difference between an old, sick person and a relatively young person is only technical, like you said, because in the end you're still playing God and deciding that this person will die because you said so. Second, I didn't want Bonnie's choice of victim to be seen as altruistic in any way. I didn't want anyone to say, "Well, at least she freed them from being sick/from suffering/etc." She didn't do it to free anyone (except herself in a way). Third, finding the "right" sick person, dodging hospital nurses and cameras, etc, would've taken too long for Bonnie once it was time to do the spell. **

**Rudy's on board because of the state he saw her in at the beginning of the flashback in the first chapter. It was either let Bonnie live this way or help her do the one thing that would help her be okay. There's another exchange in this chapter (a flashback within the flashback) that gives another look at the shell-shocked Bonnie Rudy was living with.**

**Enjoy the chapter, and thanks for your reviews! About the only things worthwhile in the TVD finale was Jeremy telling Bonnie he has a million things he wants to say to her and the Beremy kiss. Everything else regarding Bonnie was like JP busted out her trusty How to Write a Mammy writing guide. Ugh.**

* * *

**A Flash, Then Nothing: The Usual Pt 1**

"You need to go take a shower," Bonnie said when they stepped inside her house. "_I_ need to go take a shower."

She turned from locking her door and found Jeremy taking off the suit jacket. She could burn it with her clothes. And maybe her car.

"Who was that person, the one you...used?" Jeremy asked as he took the dress shirt off and then toed off his shoes and socks.

"A garbage man. Abby chose him." She was unconsciously pressing herself against the door, trying to make herself as small as possible.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. He panicked. A lot. But...it worked...obviously."

Jeremy stared at her and then went for his pants. Bonnie averted her eyes.

In boxers, Jeremy stared at her until she looked at him again.

"What?" she asked.

He started walking toward her, and she recoiled.

"Something's wrong," he said.

"Nothing's wrong," she countered, and she could feel her throat constricting.

He stepped toward her again, and she looked away and pressed into the door as if that would make him stop. Her face was beyond her control: it contorted as her vision blurred from unshed tears.

"Look at me, Bonnie," he said softly.

She shook her head.

Jeremy stopped walking. "Do you remember what we talked about on the OtherSide?" She looked up at him and in such a way that he wondered if she assumed he'd forgotten. "Do you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes." She inhaled tremblingly when he resumed walking. She stared at his left shoulder.

"Look at me."

She shook her head.

"You brought me back to life, and you refuse to look at me?" he joked.

Her mouth tensing, Bonnie slid her gaze onto him. His dark brown eyes danced all over her face, and his lips were pulled into a little smile. On a sob, Bonnie launched herself into his arms. Jeremy caught her immediately and pressed her to him.

"You smell!" Bonnie protested. "You smell so bad." She detached herself from him. "You need a shower." She bent and gathered his funerary clothes, not sure where she was going to put them.

Jeremy wasn't into her hurried movements. He wanted to hold her longer. "I'll go shower then," he told her.

"Use my bathroom," she said, and Jeremy frowned at the fact that she was holding the suit against her chest. "And use my shower gel. As many times as it takes."

With that, she left him and went to the kitchen. "Got it," Jeremy said in her wake.

* * *

Bonnie unrolled a large trash bag from the box they kept in one of the kitchen drawers and stuffed Jeremy's clothes inside. She went into the living room and added his shoes and socks to the bag. She would need his underwear. First, however, she happily took off her clothes, the evidence of the day she'd had so far, and added them, her shoes and her socks into the bag.

* * *

Jeremy stared at his face in the large mirror above the bathroom sink. Was he supposed to feel different? He didn't feel different. Was he supposed to look different? He didn't look different.

He turned his head toward the door when he heard Bonnie come inside the room.

"Hey," she greeted.

"Hey." He appraised her bra and underwear.

"Um, I need your underwear," she said, holding up the bag.

She didn't mean right at the moment, but Jeremy took it off without a word. He walked up to her and stuffed it in the bag.

She swallowed and said, "Thanks. I also came up to get my shampoo. I'm gonna shower in my dad's bathroom. What were you doing?"

"Uh, looking in the mirror," he answered and turned to go back to his reflection.

"Is something wrong?" She walked into the bathroom and stared with him.

"No. And...I don't know. I guess I'm expecting there to be; I'm expecting something. But...I feel nothing. I mean...I feel normal. I know time has gone by, but I just feel like I was away. I don't feel like I was dead."

"It might be a consequence of the spell," she suggested.

"I don't think so," he answered, connecting with her eyes in the mirror. "I didn't feel dead when I was dead either." He turned to her, and she turned to him. "It just felt like I was in a different place. It felt _different_. It didn't feel like being alive; a lot of things were missing. But it didn't feel like I was _dead_."

"Good," she said with a small smile. "Because I know what death feels like," she said, thinking of vampires, "And it _sucks_."

Jeremy smiled and turned to her. "I want to kiss you, but I can't tell what my breath smells like."

"You need a tooth brush," Bonnie said quickly, but then Jeremy kissed her on her right cheek. He hovered near her cheek, letting her know that he wished he was hovering by her mouth. He pressed a second kiss to her cheek and made this one last, and she thought of the beetle that had landed on the same cheek at the cemetery, the one that had caused her to slap her face.

"Thank you," she said softly when he faced her again. She dropped the bag, put her left hand behind his neck, raised herself on her toes, and kissed him square on the lips. The spell had restored most of the moisture to his lips, but they were still a little chapped. She cupped his cheek with her other hand and relaxed into the kiss. He brought his hands around her waist.

Jeremy tightened his hold on her waist and held her back, stopping the kiss. He bent his head down and swallowed.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He let her go and backed up, bringing the back of his hand to his lips. "I'm sorry."

"What's wrong, Jeremy? I just brought you back from the dead, so if anything's wrong you need to tell me."

He chuckled and it relaxed her a fraction.

"I'm fine; it's just...this is different. _Feeling_. I can feel you. It was different on the OtherSide, remember?"

"I remember."

"It's just a shock, that's all. It became a little overwhelming. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I remember what it was like. I guess you were getting used to being over there. I was only there a couple of minutes...I'm more used to feeling than not."

He nodded.

"Okay, so let me grab my stuff, and I'll leave you to your shower. After I'm done I'm going to go buy you some necessities, okay? Like clothes."

"Why can't you just grab some from my house?"

Bonnie considered him a moment and then said as gently as she could, "Your house...it's gone. It burned down. Elena burned it. Everything's gone."

He frowned. "Everything?"

"Everything." _Including you, until forty minutes ago._ "I'll tell you everything when I get back, okay? I just need all of your sizes."

"I'll write it down."

"Okay." She turned to leave, but then he called her name. When she looked back, he walked up to her and kissed her while cupping her face.

Jeremy's heart jumped at the tactility of the kiss.

When Bonnie opened her eyes, she saw that his were still closed, and a frown marred his brow. "Still?" she asked.

"Still." He smiled. Since a chaste kiss was this debilitating, he couldn't wait to find out how he would feel once he was clean enough for them to use tongue.

* * *

Bonnie came out of the dollar store clutching a bag containing one toothbrush, one deodorant, a pack of three Dial soaps, a bottle of shampoo, and a pack of washcloths. She'd already bought Jeremy a pair of sneakers, a pack of socks, a pair of pants, four diverse Henley shirts, one hoodie since he liked those, two packs of briefs, and a good razor.

She looked at the receipt from the dollar store as she walked to her car and wondered why she was okay with the three hundred-dollar allowance her dad put on her debit card every two months. Then she asked herself about the last time she'd bought anything, gone on a shopping spree. The summer before senior year started while she was in Georgia for her aunt's wedding? She used to be an avid buyer before all of this crap started. She used to tear down dressing rooms with Elena and Caroline.

Elena and Caroline.

She crushed the receipt in her hand and dropped it in the bag.

And Matt.

She needed to tell them. Jeremy was alive; she needed to tell them. He'd told her not to.

Actually he'd said the opposite: she could tell them, but he wanted to be at her house. They could come to her house.

So she'd tell them, and they'd come to her house, and they'd crowd Jeremy, and they'd question her. Elena would want to spend time with him.

She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and called her dad.

"Bonnie."

She smiled at the relief in his voice. "Hey."

"I spoke to Abby. She told me what happened."

"Yeah, he's here," she said with a big smile. She lifted the hand holding the bag and touched her hair. It was almost completely dry from her shower.

"Good. Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah. He's just...walking around, talking. I'm not home right now. He needed some things, like clothes and stuff. Where's Abby?"

"Loitering somewhere. She said she wanted to give you some space with Jeremy, but she's going to stop by before I come home."

"Okay."

"Are you sure everything's okay?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'll see you later."

"Bonnie. I love you."

She smiled. "I love you too, dad. And thanks. For everything."

"It wasn't a problem. Well, not much of one."

She chuckled.

"I'll see you later."

"Yeah," she exhaled. "Bye."

Her next call went to Elena. She went through her contacts to get her number because she'd taken her off her speed dial the day she'd assured her that there were no hard feelings between them about what Damon and Stefan had done to Abby.

Elena picked up on the fourth ring. "Hello, Bonnie."

Elena's tone crashed on Bonnie's ear drums, and her blood warmed beneath her skin. She remembered the tone well: the boredom, the slowness like Elena was going to need to explain something obvious to her. She'd heard it when she'd called Elena to demand an explanation after she'd learned about the Gilbert house burning down

"Hi." She waited for Elena to say something, maybe ask why she'd called, but she was greeted with dead air. "I'm just calling to tell you something."

Dead air.

She wet her dry throat, and it stung. "Jeremy's alive."

The silence was suddenly less empty. She could picture Elena trying to process her news and then, "What?"

"I brought him back."

The rush of air from Elena's unsure chuckle hit her ear, and she hung up before the newest vampire in Mystic Falls could continue.

Elena's name jumped on top of Caroline's as she was dialing the latter, and Bonnie pushed _ignore_. Elena was calling with questions, and she could answer those at her house.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Caroline."

"Heeeyyy. How are you?"

"I'm good. I'm fine." She chuckled. "How are you?"

"Keeping everyone in line about prom."

"So you're irritated."

"I'm _stressed_. Listen, I was thinking about our date situation. You and me."

Her phone buzzed against her ear. Elena was calling again.

"And Matt. Tyler's gone, and...well...Jeremy," she said delicately. "And Matt is dateless. So I was thinking of a triple date: you, me, and Matt."

"Um, I don't know if I'm going to prom."

"When was the last time you stepped out of your house, Bonnie?"

"This morning."

"Oh. Well-"

"I'm out of my house right now. I'm buying some stuff for Jeremy."

"Oh. Like flowers? Do you want me to go with you?"

She smiled. "Like clothes and deodorant."

"Uh...Bonnie-"

"He's alive, Caroline. I brought him back to life."

And she hung up. She dialed Matt, and Caroline's name flashed on the screen. _Ignore._

"Hey, Bon."

"Hi." She smiled at the worry in his voice. He'd been speaking to her in the same _I think you're really fragile right now _tone since he'd come to tell her about Jeremy's funeral. "Where are you?"

The phone vibrated in her ear. Caroline.

"School, walking back to class, but I need to end this call before I run into Mrs. Dellion, Patrol Queen of the Hallways."

Bonnie chuckled. "Well I'm just calling to tell you that Jeremy's alive."

Matt was silent almost as long as Elena was. Bonnie hung up right when he was about to speak. And like Caroline and Elena, Matt called her again. She ignored him in favor of checking her voicemail. She had one message, and it was from Caroline.

"Listen. Bonnie? Okay. I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but don't do anything okay? Just...go back home, and I'll come over as soon as school's over. Or hell, I'll just compel the authorities to let me out. But I'm coming, so you just stay put. And I love you. Okay. Very much. Bye. I love you."

Bonnie erased the message and suddenly felt very tired. Everyone was coming to her house, and they'd be bringing their emotions with them. She got in her car and immediately got back out. She needed to buy air-freshener.

As she headed home with three citrus scented little trees swinging on her rearview mirror, she daydreamed that Elena, Caroline, and Matt wouldn't come, that they'd just harass her through phone calls that she could ignore.

* * *

She had a headache by the time she got home. She grabbed the bags out of the car and struggled to open the door. Once inside, she let the bags fall from her arms onto the floor.

Jeremy was up from the couch and re-tightening the dark brown towel (with pale blue flowers) around his waist. "I thought you were your dad or something," he said as he came up to her.

"No," she said breathlessly and locked the door.

He kneeled on the floor and started going through the bags.

"I got you a toothbrush," Bonnie said as she fingered her keys.

He looked up at her and said, "Thanks."

She nodded curtly.

He stood and took her hand. "Come here."

"I called everyone," she blurted as he led her to the couch. "Elena, Caroline, Matt," she elaborated when he stopped to look at her.

Jeremy sighed. "I was kind of hoping we could wait on that." He led her the rest of the way to the couch, and they sat.

"I didn't really let them say anything. I kind of hung up. And I talked to my dad; he asked how everything went, and he said my mom's-" Bonnie blinked.

"What?" Jeremy asked and narrowed his eyes.

Bonnie smelled her hand and then she touched his chest. She splayed her fingers on it and let her hand slide down, and Jeremy looked at his chest. Bonnie pulled her hand to her nose and inhaled. "You smell."

"What?" Jeremy leaned forward. "Bonnie, I can't hear you." Her voice came out on a croaky, whispery rush of air.

Bonnie closed her hand on top of her chin. "You smell." Her voice was still a breeze, and her mouth stretched, and her ears itched, and her eyes watered.

"Bonnie," Jeremy said softly and put both of his hands on her thighs.

Bonnie cradled his left hand and put the back of it to her nose. Bath and Body Work's Moonlight Path invaded her nose and kissed her nostrils, and she cried. "You smell." She feverishly trailed her nose along his arm.

"Hey," Jeremy said as his heart plummeted in his chest. He grabbed her, and she happily straddled his lap. She buried her face in his neck and inhaled deeply.

"You smell good," she sobbed. She touched her forehead to his. "You smelled so bad before. So bad, and you were rotting. You were _rotting_!" She put her hands to her face and cried; her shoulders shook, her stomach tightened, and ugly sobs escaped her.

Jeremy took her hands from her face and kissed each one, and then he kissed both of her cheeks. Bonnie put her hands on his cheeks and smelled his hair. She ran her hands over it and ruffled it.

Jeremy was horrified, because he remembered the smell from the car. That had been him. It was hard to accept. It didn't feel like it was him, just like he didn't feel like he'd been dead. But it was him. That stomach-churning smell-

"Bonnie," he took her hands out of his hair. "How did I get to the woods? How...I was buried, right?" Yes, surely. He'd been dead. That must've meant a funeral, a casket...a burial. And time had passed. He didn't know how much time, but time must've passed. He'd been rotting.

At his question, Bonnie shut her eyes tight. He'd been disfigured, discoloration all over his body, way past the state of rigor mortis; he'd been a house for beetles and flies, dirty, some of his bones exposed, his hair thin and burnt, his scalp visible. " . ," she hiccuped after each word.

"It's okay. Bonnie, it's okay."

"No, it's not," she cried. "They burned you! They _burned_ you! _They burned you_!"

Jeremy had no idea what to say, no idea how to fix it, and his eyes watered as she fell apart on his lap. He still held her hands, and she held on to him as she bent her head and cried on her chest.

"I'm _sorry_," he said.

Bonnie held in her next sob, and Jeremy held himself very still, and she looked up at him.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm...I'm so sorry."

Fresh tears appeared on the edge of her bottom lids, and she wiped them away. Hiccups escaped her still, but she was quiet.

"Say something," Jeremy whispered, anxious.

She shook her head. "I haven't heard that before." Her voice was raspy. "Since you died." She smiled sadly. "No one's said sorry." Her father had told her _it's okay; it's gonna be okay_ as he'd rocked her in the bathroom. But no one had said sorry, no one had given condolences, not even the people who'd been closest to her, in a manner of speaking, for the past year.

She really hoped they didn't come over.

* * *

Jeremy carried her to her bedroom. His towel fell when he was making his way up the stairs, but he continued on, deposited her on the bed, and then went back for it. He grabbed the toothbrush while he was downstairs. He brushed his teeth and then joined her on the bed.

The towel was cinched around his waist now, and he spooned Bonnie on the bed. It was an inverted spoon: they faced each other. Her head was on the pillow under which one of his arms lay. The other was lazily rubbing her back. Her right leg nested between his legs, and she occasionally buried her face in his neck to sniff him, and he told her to do it to her heart's content.

"What was it like?" he asked her.

Bonnie didn't know where to start. What was what like? Knowing he was dead? The aftermath? The moment when he died? What happened after she remembered? Digging him up? Doing the spell? Killing the man?

She picked one.

"Elena's emotions are turned off. Caroline told me when she called." She hadn't known it when Elena had been telling her _It's denial. On your part, I mean. Isn't that the first step of grief or something? I've accepted it, and you should work on doing the same._

For the first time Bonnie was able to name the brand of frustration she'd felt as she'd been stuttering and stumbling through that conversation with Elena: betrayal. She'd felt betrayed. She still did.

"She said Elena was crashing, distraught over you. She'd been in denial the whole day, and it finally hit her, and...Damon used the sire bond to make her turn her feelings off. She's had them off ever since."

"How long was I gone?"

"Almost two weeks now? It feels longer. Every day dragged."

He brought his hand from her back to stroke her cheek, and she turned her head to sniff his palm. "How much of this did you use?" she asked.

"The whole bottle. Sorry. You need a new shower gel."

She chuckled. "I have a stock."

"Elena burned the house?"

"Yeah. Caroline said she'd been talking about how there was nothing left, no one left, just ranting about how everyone was gone. I guess she wanted to get rid of the last of it. But Caroline wasn't there when she did it. When she left, Elena had been calm."

"Where were you?"

"Matt had taken me home."

* * *

_"Hello?"_

_"Elena? My dad just told me, and I saw it on the news. What-what happened? What happened to your house?"_

_"I burned it."_

_"What? Why? Wha-What about Jeremy?"_

_"He was in it."_

_"I _**_see_**_ that. It's public now. Why did you-I told you I'd fixit."_

_"And I felt that you were wrong. Dropping the veil to the OtherSide-"_

_"I've done it before!"_

_"Listening to some crazy old witch-Caroline was right: wanting to commit twelve homicides to bring him back is crazy talk. You'd be unleashing hell on earth."_

_"Elena...why? I told you I'd fix it."_

_"My brother is dead, Bonnie. My only family. If I can accept that, then so can you."_

_"But-You _**_didn't_**_ have to accept it. Why are you-what are you _**_sighing_**_ about?"_

_"It's denial. On your part, I mean. Isn't that the first step of grief or something? I've accepted it, and you should work on doing the same."_

_"Elena-"_

_"_**_Goodbye_**_, Bonnie. I don't plan on spending an hour listening to you cry and repeating myself. I have to get used to my new digs."_

_"What?"_

_"The Salvatore boarding house? I have them to thank for helping me move on. Goodbye, Bonnie. You'll be okay."_

_"But...I told you I'd-"_

_*Click.*_

* * *

Bonnie tuned back in to Jeremy's thumb sliding across her cheek.

"Where did you go?" he asked.

She shook her head instead of answering him.

"What's Elena like with her emotions off?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her. The days when I went to school I avoided her, which was easy since we don't have classes together anymore. And she hasn't tried to find me..." She shrugged. "I haven't heard anything."

"Elena would never turn off her emotions. She'd be way too scared."

"Extenuating circumstances, I guess."

"And Damon and Stefan."

"Yeah." She flattened his palm on her cheek and closed her eyes. She felt Jeremy's arm wiggle under her head, so she lifted it so that he could extract his arm. When she opened her eyes, Jeremy rolled on top of her. She smiled, and opened her legs so he could settle between.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Not really."

"I love you. I realize I haven't said it since we were on the OtherSide."

She smiled. "I love you too. It was hell...without you."

* * *

_"Bonnie. Baby, you need to stop watching this." Rudy reached for the remote, but Bonnie moved her hand away and tightened her hold on it. "It's the same news cycle."_

_"They're going to stop talking about him soon. They always do. Vicky, Aimee Bradley, Dana, everyone who dies from the animal attacks. They're news, and then they're not."_

_The news reel was on the part where Liz Forbes was giving a statement._

_Bonnie knew that the sheriff knew the real story. She must._

_"They're just running the story long enough for everyone to buy it. They're gonna stop talking about him soon, so...I can do this for him. I can watch."_

_"This isn't good, Bonnie."_

_"It's not gonna last long, don't worry. They're gonna forget. They're gonna stop caring. So I can watch."_

* * *

Bonnie lifted her head from the pillow to get more of Jeremy's kiss. When he moaned, something between enjoyment and pain, she opened her eyes.

"The jolt?" she asked.

"Like my heart is jump-starting again."

She smiled.

"Not that I knew the moment my heart started beating again, but I imagine this is what it felt like."

"And what does it feel like?"

"Good. It makes me a little weak. Not physically," he specified, before she thought the wrong thing, "But like...it gives me butterflies, I guess. Makes me stomach flip."

Bonnie's smile widened, and she kissed him again. Jeremy inhaled sharply when Bonnie slipped him her tongue, but she kept going, and he kept going, enjoying the feeling in his heart and stomach. He breathed her in, kissed her more deeply, more passionately. He cradled her head with his hand to relieve her neck. She hooked a leg across his waist and whimpered into his mouth.

He was out of breath and trembling when he broke the kiss.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she cradled his face and tried to catch her own breath.

"Yeah."

"I don't wanna give you a heart attack."

He chuckled. "It doesn't hurt; I told you."

"Still. I don't want your heart to spontaneously stop."

At her mention of spontaneous, he stood on his knees, wiggled down, and started undoing her pants.

Bonnie laughed and covered her mouth. "Are you sure you're up for this?" she asked when she took her hands away.

"I'm sure."

"I didn't..."

He stopped, his hands at the waistband of her pants. "What?"

"I didn't buy anything. Protection. Condoms. I'm not on anything."

Jeremy sighed. He was still a little out of breath from their kiss. "That's fine. We don't need that kind of protection for this."

Bonnie folded her lips to hide her smile at what he was talking about. "I'll fix the condom problem as soon as possible."

He gave her an irresistible smile that made her want to smother her face into her pillows, and he wrestled her pants down. She lifted her hips to help him, and then he went for her underwear and slid it off.

He coaxed her into spine-tingling excitement. He kissed the length of her thighs more than once, licked the outside of both her labia, licked the insides, teased her hole, rubbed his nose against her hair mound, bit her thigh, gave lazy licks to the top of her clitoris until she was explicitly aware of the humidity between her thighs. She wanted to remind him that they didn't have as much time as he seemed to think, that her mother could stop by any time, but she was carried away by the anticipation he was weaving. He came to licking her clit directly, and she moved her hips to let him know where she wanted his mouth.

She grinned when he focused on licking on top of her hood. Close. She bent her right leg at the knee and hooked her arm under it, and she very suggestively pushed his head with her other thigh. She didn't want to rob him of his enjoyment, but she wanted more; she wanted what he was promising.

So she let her leg go, and boxed his head in with her thighs. He laughed, and she laughed in response.

"I feel like you're trying to tell me something," he said when she freed his head.

"Oh, do you?"

Jeremy chuckled, but something was very wrong. He'd suspected it while they'd been kissing, but now it was undeniable. He was kissing all over her thighs and her vulva; he wanted her; he knew that, felt it in his brain, his heart, his stomach. Everywhere but his dick. He wasn't getting hard. As much as she affected him, his dick was completely flaccid under the towel. And his heart drummed a panicked rhythm against his chest.

He didn't let on to Bonnie, however. He gave her what she wanted, and made sure she enjoyed it. He listened for her sighs, the way her breath hitched, her moans, and her "Ohs." It all affected him, but it didn't communicate to his dick.

His appetite came back as he ate Bonnie: he realized he was starving, his stomach completely empty.

"Shit," Bonnie cursed and almost covered her mouth as if she wasn't supposed to. She savored the sensation of Jeremy's mouth on her pussy, his upper lip peaking from beneath her pubic hair whenever he opened his mouth to engulf more of her.

Sweet tension enveloped her body. Her vision swam, and everything seemed louder: the silence that surrounded them, his breath fanning her wet pussy, her breath rushing out of her, the rustling of the sheets as she bent and stretched her leg in response to her building orgasm.

The wave that was her orgasm took it's time before it fell on her, taking her under and drowning her. She stood there, waist-deep in the water and head reeled back, watching the height of the wave, the white foam at the top, giddy with excitement and waiting for it to crash on her. She lifted into Jeremy's mouth; she smiled wide and closed her eyes, wondering when it was going to happen, anticipating the moment during and after.

She dropped her hips and sharply arched her back. The wave crashed down on her, soaked and ravaged her. She clutched her sheets and inhaled, inhaled, inhaled until she let out a long, high-pitched, trembling yelp when Jeremy's consistent suckling caused an unexpected wave to spirit her away just when she thought she could breathe again.

* * *

Jeremy woke before Bonnie. He'd eaten her out until her clit became too sensitive to bear contact. He'd inserted first one, then two, then three fingers in her when she was ready and stretched enough, but she had one weak orgasm from that and then was too tired to keep going. He hadn't minded. He'd been on the verge of losing all feeling in his mouth.

He loved eating Bonnie out. Her sounds and movements. He'd watched her a couple of times as he ate her, and her face was a thing of wonder. Thinking about going down on her had always made his dick hard. It had certainly been hard when he'd eaten her out almost a year ago during their first night at the witch house after she'd gone up against Klaus. But this afternoon had been a different story. Not once had he felt so much as a stir.

She had constantly pulled him up before and after her orgasms, and he'd obliged, kissing her into forgetting that she maybe wanted to try something different, that maybe she wanted to touch him down there or ask him to enter her. And once her arms relaxed around his neck, he went back down.

But he needed to figure out what the hell was wrong. A consequence of the spell maybe? This would be one hell of a consequence if so.

He heard the faded cast iron knocker being put to work again, and this time the banging wrestled Bonnie out of her sleep.

"What's going on?" she asked groggily, turning onto her back. She was nestled in the crook of his left arm.

"Someone's at the door."

"Mmmm." Bonnie pressed her fingers against her eyes as she tried to remember what it felt like to be awake.

"Wait, you can stay; I'll get it," Jeremy said when she sat up.

"No, you can't." She frowned and willed her brain to work faster. "We don't know who it is. My dad's mayor now, and we've been getting a lot of visitors."

"Bon, I was here when your dad became mayor," he reminded her, amused.

Bonnie chuckled. "Right. Sorry. I'm not all there." She let her head fall back and took a deep breath. "Okay. Wow. What time is it?"

"No idea."

"It might be my mom. My dad said she was going to stop by." Even though she wasn't ready, she got out from under the covers. "First I need clothes," she said with a small smile. Jeremy had taken off her top and bra to play with her breasts one of the times when she'd pulled him up.

Bonnie got dressed in clean underwear and denim capris. She put on the first bra she saw and threw on a purple crotchet tank. She stuffed her feet into the brown floral wedge flip-flops she saw peeking out of her closet and made her way toward the stairs, patting and pulling at her matted hair as she went.

Jeremy followed her, because he remembered that all of his new clothes were in bags downstairs.

Bonnie watched Jeremy run up the stairs with the bags. She rubbed the corners of her eyes to get rid of any and all unsightly things, and then she moved the curtains on the door to see who it was.

Three pairs of eyes stared back at her, two worried and one tense.


	6. A Flash, Then Nothing: The Usual Pt 2

**Thank you for reading and reviewing! **

* * *

**A Flash, Then Nothing: The Usual Pt. 2**

In light of the bigger picture, Jeremy being alive, Bonnie didn't think twice when she said, "Come in."

Everyone walked in, including Elena who'd yet to stop by Bonnie's house for an invitation.

"I would've come earlier, but it's not that easy to compel a teacher in front of a whole class, and then when Matt came up to me in the hallway, and I got Elena's call, we just...we figured-_I_ figured it was better we all come together."

"Bonnie, please tell me you didn't kill twelve people," Matt plead.

"I didn't kill twelve people," Bonnie said calmly. She made eye contact with Elena, who stared at her unblinking, her neck muscles taunt.

"When you said he was alive, you didn't mean-" Caroline began, but was interrupted by a pair of feet descending the stairs.

Everyone turned to look, everyone except Elena who at last lowered her eyes from Bonnie.

"Holy crap," Caroline whispered. It had been a closed-casket funeral, but she'd seen the dead body beforehand, pre-fire.

"Hey," Jeremy said when Caroline and Matt kept staring at him, and he descended from the last step. His eyes flitted to Elena's profile and then to Bonnie.

Everyone remained quiet, so Jeremy came closer to where they were huddled by the front door. Elena, Caroline, and Matt stood between him and Bonnie.

"Was this Silas?" Caroline asked suddenly, swiveling to Bonnie, eyes wide. "Did he do this? Oh my God, did you drop the veil?"

"I didn't drop the veil; I don't-" Bonnie suddenly laughed. It had been _that_ long since they'd communicated. "I don't have Expression anymore. I'm clean. I'm back to my regular magic."

"Elena," Jeremy called out, and everyone quieted. Matt and Caroline looked at the girl in question.

Elena turned and lifted her eyes to Jeremy's. "The spirits did this?" she asked calmly as she stared at him.

"No," Bonnie answered. "I did. It was all me." For a moment, Jeremy locked eyes with her.

"But this is serious, right?" Caroline asked Bonnie. "Dead people aren't supposed to come back to life."

"But this one did. Just like I said he would."

Elena swallowed. Maybe she heard more accusation in that last sentence than there actually was.

"I heard the house burned down," Jeremy said to Elena by way of making conversation.

"Yeah, with you in it," Elena said honestly, which pulled a gasp from Caroline and caused Matt to raise his eyebrows in alarm.

Jeremy nodded. "Also heard your switch was off."

Elena twisted her mouth. "What else have you heard?" She said it like Bonnie had been slandering her good name.

"That's it. I've been back for less than twenty-four hours."

"Can we get back to the _how_, please? I'm happy to see you back, Jeremy, I really am-"

Bonnie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply at Caroline's offhandedness. When she opened her eyes, she found that Jeremy was looking at her.

_No one's said sorry._

"-but the last time we saw you, Bonnie, you were calm, cool, collected, and ready to kill twelve people to drop the veil and bring him and _everyone_ back."

That was news to Jeremy.

"I found a more efficient way to do it," Bonnie replied.

"Which consisted of?"

"Does it matter?"

"_Yeah_. It does if it means we're gonna have a problem."

A harsh chuckle spewed out of Bonnie. "A problem like what?"

"I don't know, but there are always problems, right? Consequences? Like what happened the last time you used Dark Magic. Oh my God, did you use Dark Magic for this?"

"Caroline," Elena spoke.

"I used my regular magic for this, and whatever _consequences_ there are, I'll _deal_ with them, _just_ like I dealt with them the last time, _just_ like I would've dealt with them if I _had_ dropped the veil. You really have nothing to worry about, Caroline. I promise this won't be a _blip_ on your radar."

"Bon," Matt sighed. "What did you do?"

"What does it matter?!" Bonnie asked with a mystified laugh. "Since when has it ever mattered? I brought him back. _You're welcome_."

"This is gonna be a problem," Caroline said softly as something dawned on her. "It was all over the news that he died."

Bonnie nodded slowly and lowered her eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"So is that all the questioning?" Jeremy asked, his deep voice clearly telling everyone that they could leave if they were done.

As Matt looked at him, conscious, awake, talking, breathing, he remembered Bonnie's promise: Vicky could've come back, too. But he'd turned it down, backed Caroline and disparaged the idea.

"We're done," Elena declared. As Caroline and Matt looked at her in surprise, she turned on her heels to leave. She stopped in front of Bonnie, their faces equally tense. A beat passed, and then Elena headed for the door.

"That's it?" Jeremy asked. "You're leaving?"

"Her switch is off," Caroline explained.

Jeremy almost responded _'So?'_

Elena turned the door handle and walked out.

"She's the one who called me," Caroline told Jeremy, hoping that told him something about what was going on beneath Elena's icy surface. "She wanted to know if I'd heard from Bonnie, and then it just went from there. I think she'll come around. She just needs a little time."

Jeremy nodded.

Bonnie moved to the door, opened it and stood to the side. She waited for Caroline and Matt to take their leave.

"I'm...I'm glad he's back," Caroline said when she faced her in front of the threshold.

Bonnie gave her a tight smile.

"I just..." she looked at Jeremy. "I'm just not really sure how it happened-"

Bonnie wanted to remind her that she never knows how it happens, and it never led to her posing twenty questions.

"-or what it means," Caroline continued. "Or what happens next. People are gonna find out."

Bonnie lifted a shoulder in acknowledgment.

"Um...I'll call you, okay?"

"Yeah," she answered, though she didn't hold her breath for calls anymore.

Matt was left behind, and he looked at Jeremy. "Welcome back, man."

Jeremy smiled. "Thanks."

"Are you sure this is okay?" he asked Bonnie when he stopped in front of her.

"I'm as sure as I can be."

He nodded, looking a lot unsure himself. He rubbed Bonnie's arm, and she nodded, and then he left.

When she closed the door, Jeremy said, "Well that didn't go well."

Bonnie stared at the door, lead pouring over her feelings and her thoughts. When Jeremy came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, she slyly shrugged away from his touch by turning to face him and leaning on the door.

"Twelve people?" he asked.

"Silas, he wanted to make a triangle for something or other. He said killing twelve people, like Shane did, would complete this triangle. It would allow me to use Expression to bring down the veil and allow every dead person to walk the earth. Including you. He knew I wanted you back, and he...used my feelings to prey on me before I left the island." She shrugged. "I was for the plan. But my mom had a better idea."

"Where's Silas now?"

She shrugged. "Somewhere on the seven continents. I haven't heard from him since the island. But I need to find him," she said and briskly moved away from Jeremy. "Stop him."

"Woah, wait-"

"It's our fault he's walking," she explained as she continued toward the stairs. "It's my fault, and I need to fix that."

"I know," Jeremy assured her as he ran to cut her off before she ascended the first step. Grabbing her hand, he said, "Can we-take a break first? Twelve people, Bonnie."

"It didn't happen."

"But it could've. It would've."

Bonnie averted her gaze.

"For me," Jeremy said, and it was as humbling now as it had been when she'd told him her heart hurt on the OtherSide.

"They were gonna come back," she said softly, looking at the handrail. "That's what Silas promised."

Jeremy hooked his index finger under her chin and gently lifted her head so that she would look at him. His breath was taken away at the sadness in her eyes, but then the sadness, too, was quickly buried under lead, and her gaze dulled.

"You need to go after Elena."

"What?" he asked, confused. He'd been about to kiss her.

"She just found out you're alive. You heard what Caroline said: there's something under there. You need to go find her, reach out to her, talk to her."

"I can do that later."

Bonnie felt a flutter in her chest and avoided his gaze. She suddenly felt boxed in by his height. Suddenly, him standing in front of her meant he was a barrier between her and solitude, because all she wanted now was to be alone.

"Hey," Jeremy said and grabbed her cheeks.

Bonnie took his hands off.

"Bonnie-"

"I'm not the only one who had a hard time while you were gone."

"_I know that,_" he stressed.

"Then find your sister," she commanded and brushed past him to go up the stairs.

Stunned, Jeremy tuned to watch her blaze a trail as she escaped from him. He'd been able to tell that Caroline and Matt's questions were making her uncomfortable. After how she'd avoided him when they'd first come to the house and then her breakdown earlier, he'd had a sense that she was feeling badgered by their questions, so he'd let them know where the door was.

Apparently that hadn't fixed things for Bonnie. Caroline and Matt's questions had put her in a lasting funk. Jeremy considered going after her and asking her what was wrong, forcing her to talk, but he had a feeling that she was one second away from really losing her patience. So he'd indulge her. But-

"I don't have my license!" he yelled after her. He heard her make her way back and raised his eyebrows when she appeared.

"Just take my car," she said tersely.

"What if I get stopped by a deputy?" He asked casually, his eyes twinkling.

"My keys are somewhere in the living room."

"I could get in trouble. I could get arrest-"

Bonnie turned and went to her bedroom, and he smiled.

* * *

Jeremy drove with all of the windows down. The little trees were doing their best, but there was still a smell in the car.

As he made the turns that would take him to the boarding house, he thought about what it was like for Bonnie to dig him up and then transport him to the woods. Would he have been able to do the same? Absolutely yes. But in his case, it would've started and stopped at him digging her up. He wouldn't have been able to bring her back. He didn't have the power that she had.

"Twelve people," he murmured to himself.

The sky was pale when he reached the Salvatore residence. High noon was long gone, and the sun had begun its journey down.

Jeremy stared at the mansion after he threw the car into park. It didn't look different, further adding to the feeling that he hadn't been dead. A drive by his own house would fix that feeling, he was sure. He decided that it wasn't prudent to go there, however, not while it was still daylight. But he was curious as to what the property looked like now.

He walked up to the mansion and rang the doorbell. Had Elena told the brothers the news?

Damon opened the door, and the word 'switch' invaded Jeremy's mind and multiplied. 'Switch,' 'switch,' 'switch.'

"What the hell?" Damon grimaced at him.

"Hey. Is Elena here? _Damon_. Is Elena here?"

"How are _you_ here? Last I checked you were burned to a crisp and buried six feet under. I was at your _funeral_."

"I'm sure you gave a touching eulogy. Where's my sister?"

"Bonnie," Damon said under his breath as his eyes widened a fraction. "What did she do?"

"Nothing you need to be worried about."

"You haven't been here, _Lazarus_. Since you've been gone, your little _anchor_ made nice-nice with an ancient witch."

"Where did Elena go?" Because she obviously wasn't in the house.

"What's going on?"

Jeremy rolled his eyes at Stefan's voice. Great.

"Jeremy?"

"Yeah, I'm back. Do you know where Elena went?"

"How-?"

"Bonnie," Damon cut off Stefan's question.

Jeremy stepped closer to the threshold but instead of repeating his question, he hauled back and punched Damon across the face.

Damon stumbled and hit the side of the door, and Jeremy suddenly felt a rush, the same rush he'd felt when he had staked Stefan in the Lockwood cellar, and he quickly wondered if he was still a Hunter with a capital H.

He wanted to hit Stefan, too, but the Ripper had had too much warning with him hitting Damon. Jeremy kept his eyes on Damon in order to let Stefan believe that his problem lied solely with Damon.

"That's for the fucking switch, you asshole."

"Hey, hey!" Damon called after him when he started to make his way back to the car.

"Damon," Stefan warned.

Jeremy was roughly turned around to face Damon. All of the muscles in Jeremy's body tensed.

"She was _spiraling_; I _helped_ her."

"By making her lock away all feelings?!"

"_Yes_. You didn't see her falling apart on that floor. She would've crashed."

"You mean like normal people do."

"Except she's not _normal_; she's a _vampire_, and crashing for _her_ would've meant thrashing, going day to day from one extreme to another with no real focus, no real guidance, no _care_ for anything-"

"How the hell is that any different with her switch off?"

"There is a focus with the switch off. She's focused on herself."

"And not me. Not my death." Jeremy's fist clenched, and he saw from the tick in Damon's right eye that he was prepared for his swing. So he didn't take it. Instead he wrenched his arm from Damon.

"It's still in there somewhere," Damon said.

"But we can't make her let it all in all at once. It'll be just as bad as if she'd never turned her switch off," Stefan explained. He decided it was best to not tell Jeremy that they couldn't _make_ Elena turn her switch back on. The sire bond was gone.

"But I'm alive now. Wouldn't that make a difference?"

"I don't know," Stefan admitted gravely.

Jeremy wanted to ask how the hell they both knew all of this. How many times had they seen a situation like Elena's before? Had _they_ been through it? Why were they such experts? He'd also give anything to shove a stake into Stefan's kidney again.

"This wasn't your call to make," he said to them and left. He had a strong feeling about where Elena was.

* * *

Jeremy felt like he was having an out of body experience when he got to the cemetery. The place had been his home while he'd been dead, but he refused to believe it. The last time he was at the cemetery was when he'd buried Jenna and John. So he held on to that. The last time he was at the cemetery was when he'd buried Jenna and John, and there'd been nothing after.

He was confounded about where to look for Elena until he thought about what had been his situation. He'd been dead. So where would he have been buried? In the family plot, of course. That's where he'd always expected to be buried, and it's where he would have buried Elena if she'd died.

A part of him wanted to call out to her so that she could meet him halfway, because that same part realized that he was walking to his grave.

The other part of him was intrigued wanted to see what his grave looked like.

He found Elena staring down at the hole, a clean shovel in her hand. Jeremy didn't know if she'd heard his approach, or if she was aware that he now stood facing her on the other side of the hole, until she spoke.

"I wanted to dig you out. If you were really alive, you wouldn't be in the coffin, right? I wanted to see for myself. But I found this."

She looked at the hole as if it could tell her how everything happened.

Jeremy put his hands in his pockets. "Bonnie dug me out this morning."

Elena's eyes snapped up to meet his as her hand tightened on the shovel.

"You don't need to look for anything, Elena. I'm here. I'm really here."

He saw more emotion in her eyes then than he'd seen at the house, but then she quickly looked at the coffin that was on Jeremy's side of the hole.

"We need to get rid of this. It's evidence. We need to re-bury it, or throw it away, something, before the groundskeeper finds it."

Hands fisted in his pockets, Jeremy slowly walked up to the coffin. His coffin. It had a white lining on the inside, just like Jenna's, John's, his mom's, and his dad's had had. It was black on the outside. His parents' had been a burgundy red. He remembered Jenna carefully asking him and Elena what they thought of it before they'd bought it.

"Are you okay?"

He flinched when Elena touched him. He cleared his throat and said, "Yeah I'm fine. This is just so weird. I don't remember ever being here."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember a lot of things, most of it from the OtherSide, but the last thing I remember from _here_ was...Bonnie hurt, Katherine, and...fear and pain because Silas was sucking the life out of me. Things went black, and then I was looking at Bonnie lying on the ground. And then I realized I could stand up. But when I ran to her she was unconscious, and I couldn't touch her. My hands went right through her. And then she was gone. Just like that. I was standing in an empty cave. I was on the Otherside."

After her encounter with Katherine in the caves, Elena had suspected that she had something to do with Jeremy's death. In her hysteria at finding Jeremy dead, she hadn't noticed that Silas was missing. Stefan had theorized on the plane; he'd also wondered where Bonnie was, since she'd gone looking for Jeremy.

This was the first time she learned that Bonnie had been hurt, though she still didn't know by whom or what.

"I don't remember this," Jeremy said resolutely. He was okay with that. He walked to the shovel that Elena had dropped before she came to his side and picked it up. "Let's bury it. It'll be less suspicious if the coffin's still here. Anyone comes digging, they'll find it, and it'll be easier for them to buy that it was a miracle. It's not like I'm going to tell them I remember exactly what happened. I can say I don't remember walking out of the cemetery; I just remember standing at the Salvatore house. Naked."

There was no way he was going to give anyone a chance to suspect Bonnie.

* * *

When Rudy came home, Bonnie hadn't read more than one word in the grimoire that was opened before her. Her thoughts alternated between the orgasmic afternoon she'd spent with Jeremy and everyone converging inside her house earlier.

She listened to Rudy's footsteps as they approached her room. When he knocked and called her name, she almost hurried to open the door.

"Hi!" she said brightly.

Rudy narrowed his eyes at her attempt at a bright smile and then responded. "Hi."

When he looked past her into the room, she said, "He's not here. He's out with Elena."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Rudy sighed and pulled her into a tight hug.

"I'm really fine," Bonnie said, even as her throat constricted and her face tensed. She chuckled when Rudy released her, but she teared up. She squeezed her eyes tight when he hugged her again. She desperately hoped that she wouldn't sob. "I'm fine," she repeated and turned her face so that her forehead rested on her dad's chest. She steeled herself and stepped back and took a deep breath.

Rudy grabbed her chin and examined her face. "You look...alive. I'm serious," he said when she chuckled. "Abby stopped by earlier, but she said she heard two people snoring."

"Wait, she came by? Wow, I was that far gone?"

"Yeah, and I was glad to hear it. You haven't been sleeping."

"It didn't feel like it," Bonnie said and turned to go sit on her bed. "Every day dragged." But her nap earlier had been the deepest she'd slept in a long time, _especially_ since Jeremy had died.

"Abby said there was a little complication with the sacrifice?" Rudy took a seat next to her.

"It didn't last that long," Bonnie assured him as she put her heels on the bottom mattress.

"Not the way she told it."

Bonnie looked away. "I just needed a pep talk. And she gave it to me." She looked at Rudy and smiled.

"How was it?"

Bonnie shrugged, but she was back at the scene in the woods. "Hard. Devastating. I was angry and sorry and..." She shrugged again. "I hated it. And then it started working, and I remembered why I was doing it."

"And now he's back."

"And now he's back." She looked at Rudy and smiled.

He put his arm around her and said, "I'm glad."

"Now things will go back to normal."

She succeeded at keeping the heavy sadness she felt out of her voice.

* * *

Jeremy and Elena didn't talk while they buried the coffin. Elena used her strength to gauchely dump it in the hole, and Jeremy shoveled dirt over it until it was buried.

"No headstone?" he questioned when they were done.

"I guess not," she answered.

He raised his eyebrow, "You _guess_?"

"I kind of missed the funeral."

"Kind of," he said, amused.

"I didn't wanna go."

"Because of the switch."

"A little bit." She didn't want to go because of how she felt; the _reason_ she gave for not wanting to go was heavily influenced by her switch being off. "I've done some horrible things, Jer, some _terrible_ things."

"Like burn down the house?" he deadpanned.

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't," he said without malice. He'd been dead. He couldn't exactly tell her how to react to that. It wasn't like he'd felt his body being burned. He'd been long gone from the world by then. "It's okay," he promised, and he gave her a little smile as evidence.

Yet he couldn't deny that it meant everything to him that Bonnie had had the opposite reaction from Elena. Rather than wanting to get rid of his body, of every trace of him, of every memory, Bonnie had clawed to get him back.

"I just...I just didn't want to deal with any of it. I thought I'd give Fate a helping hand and just get rid of everything."

Jeremy nodded.

As they drove back to Bonnie's place, Jeremy's acceptance and complacency nagged at Elena. He wasn't angry or disappointed or upset. He didn't even have questions about her burning down the house. There was just...a complete lack of...interest? No, he was interested. He didn't _not_ care about her reaction. Investment? Yes. There was a complete lack of investment. He was just...okay with everything. But maybe she was looking too deeply into it, imagining something that wasn't there.

When they got to the house, she walked Jeremy to the front door, waited with him after he knocked.

"I'm glad you're back," she said suddenly. He turned to her, and she looked down. "I'm really glad you're back." She took a deep breath and it caught in her throat. Turning to him, she said, "I'm really, really glad you're back," and to her surprise, her voice broke on the last two words, and her eyes moistened.

Jeremy took her in a hug, and her face broke, and she held him tight, tighter. He smiled, because this was what he'd expected when she'd come to the house earlier, and his eyes watered too.

They parted just in time to see the curtains move and Bonnie's face appear. The door opened shortly.

"Hi," Bonnie greeted timidly.

"Hey," Jeremy said with a smile, and he kissed an unresponsive Bonnie on the cheek.

She crossed her arms.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Elena said.

Jeremy nodded and touched Bonnie's arm on his way inside. Bonnie gave him a pleasant smile.

Elena waited until Jeremy had gone upstairs, and she said, "I'm coming by to see him again tomorrow."

"That's fine," Bonnie said with a shrug. She chuckled, because Elena didn't need permission from her.

"I want to thank you-"

"Don't." Bonnie's response was frostier than Jeremy's had been. When Elena frowned, she said, "_Don't_ thank me."

"He wouldn't be here-"

"No he wouldn't. But I didn't do it for you. Do me a favor, and don't thank me as if I did. Don't thank me at all. I'm glad you have him back and that you guys can spend time together. But that was the last thing on my mind when I was doing it." Unconsciously, Bonnie took a step back and grabbed the door.

Getting the hint, Elena stood straighter and squared her shoulders and said, "Fine. I'll come by tomorrow."

Bonnie folded her lips and twitched her head as a response.

"Good night."

"Yeah."

Elena smiled at Bonnie's attitude and then headed to her car. After she heard the door close, she tried to pinpoint the source of Bonnie's attitude. The last time they'd spoken, prior to Bonnie's call that afternoon, was the day after she'd burned the house. Was that it? She was mad about her burning Jeremy's body? Maybe she was mad about her response to Bonnie's response to her burning Jeremy's body. Or both?

As she started the car, she continued to think about it. That was a show of investment on Bonnie's part. She compared it to Jeremy's lack of investment, and the feeling that her good name was being questioned, the feeling that there was some kind of comparison happening, grew.


	7. A Flash, Then Nothing: The Usual Pt 3

**A Flash, Then Nothing: The Usual, Pt. 3**

Bonnie heard her father and Jeremy talking when she got to the top of the stairs. She put her hands in her back pockets and slowly approached their conversation.

"So, what's your living situation right now? Are you planning to go live with your sister, or...?"

Jeremy looked at Bonnie briefly. "Actually, um, if it's okay, I was wondering if I could stay here for a little bit."

Rudy turned to glance at Bonnie, and she brightened up for his benefit. She walked around to stand next to Jeremy. Jeremy's request took her by surprise, but she wanted to show that she agreed.

"Uh, well...being that this is a situation that is out of the ordinary, I'll say...yes. And being that this is a situation that is out of the ordinary, I won't suggest separate bedrooms-"

Bonnie gave Rudy a long look, but Jeremy was nodding seriously.

"I also ask that you two respect this house and are considerate of those who live within it."

Bonnie couldn't decide whether she wanted herself or her father to disappear.

"Yes sir," Jeremy responded, and Bonnie decided that it was the entire conversation that needed to disappear.

"Thanks, dad," she deadpanned.

"So what are you two up to now?"

"I'm doing research," Bonnie said quickly.

"I'll be helping," Jeremy said.

"What kind of research?"

"Uh. On Silas." When Rudy's eyes widened, she continued hurriedly, "We need to put him down as soon as possible-"

"Bonnie, you just got out of this man's clutches."

"I wasn't in his _clutches_, per say, but the longer he's out, the less safe it is for everyone. I'm not planning any attacks; I'm just looking for anything that can give us a leg up, an advantage."

"You don't even know what you're up against."

"Hence the research."

Rudy sighed. At least she now had enough energy to try being cute. That was quite a change from before. "Well listen, I just got my daughter back, and we just got _you_ back," he said to Jeremy, "So how about we take a breather and watch a movie first or something. You're welcome to join us, Jeremy."

Bonnie inhaled deeply.

"I think that's a great idea," Jeremy said pointedly at Bonnie. When Bonnie glared at him, he knew she was still in her funk. "So what are we watching?" he asked Rudy.

* * *

The day after Jeremy's resurrection, Damon Salvatore parked behind her car. She was taking out the trash and didn't notice him until he spoke behind her.

"How's Silas looking these days?"

Bonnie almost missed a step on her way to the trash, but after glancing behind her, she kept walking. "I wouldn't know, haven't seen him."

"Congratulations on the resurrection. Elena's thrilled."

Bonnie lifted the lid and dumped the trash. "I know; I saw her."

"So how'd you do it?"

She smiled. "Lot of people asking that." Turning to him, she said, "Ask Matt."

"Caroline said you were skimpy with the details."

She shrugged.

"Well, I don't see any ghosts running around. Doesn't feel like the world is ending."

"So why are you here?"

"What'd you do, Bonnie? Seriously."

"None of your business, Damon. Now get away from my house."

* * *

Bonnie used to look forward to night time. She dreaded the day, going out and living, mingling with people, acting like her daily routine mattered. Sleeping had meant a reprieve from the pain of losing Jeremy. Being in her room with the sun going down had meant she could work on bringing him back.

Now that he was back, now that Elena was making good on her promise to stop by every day to hang out with him, she looked forward to being out of her house and dreaded being alone with him at night. She was waiting for him to leave. Any day now, he would leave. He'd taken her by surprise when he'd asked Rudy permission to stay with her.

She was happy that he was around. She appreciated the sentiment behind him wanting to stay, but she didn't do anything to show it. She was living in the future now, and in the future he would leave.

* * *

She got that phone call from Caroline on the third day. Caroline tentatively let her know that her mother, Stefan, Damon, and Elena were working on the story that they were going to sell to the public about Jeremy's resurrection.

"Great. Keep me updated."

"And call me if you come up with any ideas."

"Sure, yeah."

She wasn't interested in selling anything to the public.

* * *

On the fourth day, Bonnie made eye contact with Stefan at school. She saw his intent to come over.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hi," she responded and closed her locker.

"I heard about the big news. I saw Jeremy when he stopped by to look for Elena. How is he doing?"

"Fine. He's fine." Elena was missing school today to hang out with Jeremy at her house. Bonnie had asked Jeremy how things had gone both on Saturday and on Sunday, and none of the details he'd given her had included hanging out at the Salvatore house. Might have something to do with the fact that he'd punched Damon in the face on Friday. Bonnie idly wondered if that was why it took Stefan so long to come ask about him.

"Have you heard from Silas?"

"Not since the island."

"Well, we need to find him. You said he took the cure."

"He did. I took it from Katherine, and...I gave it to him." It had been an exchange for Silas' help in bringing Jeremy back.

"What do you think the chances are that he took it?"

"I looked at the box. There's a spell carved into it, sealing it shut. I didn't understand the words, and I don't know where Silas is at power-wise. He might've manage to open the box, or he could be building his strength until he can."

"Can you track him with a locator spell?"

"I have nothing that belongs to him. But...maybe I can come up with a different locator spell and include something about finding the man Qetsiyah loved."

"Keep me posted?"

"Yeah," she smiled. Back to business. She was used to business.

* * *

On the fourth day, Bonnie diverted her route when she saw that Elena's car was still in front of her house. She drove aimlessly and then decided to pay Abby a visit. She'd overheard that Abby was staying at Bed of Flowers, the bed and breakfast owned by Mrs. Flowers, when Abby had been helping Rudy care for her. She didn't alert Abby to her visit; she called when she was in the parking lot.

"Hello?"

"Hi, it's me. Bonnie."

"Hey."

"Hey. So I'm outside in the parking lot, but I have no idea what room you're in."

"Um. I'm in 109."

"Okay, I'll be right there."

"Okay," Abby said hesitantly.

When Abby opened the door, Bonnie could tell by her expression that this was the last thing she had expected. Bonnie decided that she probably would've had the same expression if Abby had dropped by her house for a visit, prior to Jeremy's death that is.

"Hi," Bonnie greeted.

"Hi," Abby said slowly. Then remembering herself, she said, "Come in."

The room was spotless, and Bonnie wondered if Abby had always been neat. She also wondered how much her bill currently was, because she'd been in town for almost four weeks now. "How long do you plan on staying here?"

"Uh. A couple of days more, maybe some weeks, you know. Until things settle down. Please sit, on the bed, or the chair..."

Bonnie chose the bed. She sat on the end, and Abby remained standing, hovering by the door.

"So what brought you by?"

"I was just driving around, and I thought I'd stop by. Dad said I was asleep when you came by the house a couple of days ago."

"Yeah," Abby smiled. "It was nice to hear."

"I never got to thank you for everything." Abby shook her head to tell Bonnie that it's nothing that deserves thanks, but Bonnie continued, "Thank you. I honestly don't know what I would've done if it hadn't been for you...and dad...and Aja, too."

"You'd probably be gathering twelve people for the slaughter," Abby joked.

Bonnie chuckled, "Yeah, I guess so."

"I'll tell Aja you said thanks. How are you feeling?"

Bonnie took a deep breath. "Good. You know; he's here."

"Have you thought about what I said?"

Bonnie swallowed. "Taking what's mine?"

"What you feel is yours, what makes you happy."

"Well, I took him back," she shrugged. "And I think it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

Abby nodded.

Looking down and running her thumb along her house key's ridges, Bonnie asked, "Was that how you felt when you left?" She looked up and saw Abby's set jaw. "'Cause that's what you were doing when you left, right? Taking back your happiness?"

"No," she breathed out. "That's not...I was escaping." She made her way to the chair, her movements careful and tense like she's been waiting to tell this story, to explain herself. "It wasn't the same as what you did with Jeremy. _Leaving_ didn't make me happy, it just...it made things easier, life easier, but only in the superficial sense, and it only _became_ superficial once I left, because while I was there it was very...not superficial." Seeing Bonnie's frown, she tried to slow down. "I felt boxed in, like I was choking. Every spell, every save, every nosebleed, I felt like I was getting smaller and smaller, skinnier and skinnier. I was starving myself. And I tried to hold on to the positives. I was helping people. I had you. I had your father."

"But it wasn't enough," Bonnie surmised.

"I was stubborn. Because...I did love...our family legacy. I loved our family history; I loved the witchcraft; I loved what we stood for. I still do. Despite everything that's happened, I still love that...witchcraft...that's our world. I was proud of it and in awe of it, and I wanted to contribute to it."

Bonnie smiled. "Yeah. I don't think if I feel that way anymore. I used to. I still kind of like my powers, but-"

"But you've been starving."

Bonnie averted her gaze.

"I was my own enemy," Abby continued. "I wanted it all to stop, but I wanted to be a _Bennett_."

"Yeah," Bonnie scoffed. "I hear it's a pretty big deal."

"Yeah. But soon enough that family legacy starts looking like a menacing, never-ending shadow."

"Why didn't you take me with you? Or dad? Why did you-?" Even if it had been an impromptu decision, she could've called and asked Rudy to meet up with her.

"Being a Bennett got to be too much for me, but I still wanted it for you. I still wanted you to get the powers, to learn the history, to get all of the great experience that I got with mama. I wanted you to get a chance to be proud of the family, no matter what came after." She kept her eyes away from Bonnie's when she confessed the next part. "I also-I felt that if I had taken you with me, both of you, I would've just relocated the problem. It was me," she said, looking at Bonnie again. "If I isolated myself, then...things would change. And they did."

"You were happy."

"No. I wasn't happy. I was...kind of happy. Kind of content. But not completely. Because I was running. For this artificial peace, one that kept me alive probably longer than I would've lived had I stayed, sure, but...for this artificial peace, I cut out a part of my life. A part of myself. And I never forgot that. I never stopped thinking about it, wondering. I settled, bought a house, took Jaime in, raised him. But it was all in the bigger picture of me running."

Bonnie wanted to ask her if she would've come looking for her had she not found her first. She wanted to know if the fact that she'd never stopped thinking about her old life, about her and Rudy, meant that it was part of her plans to come back at some point. But she didn't ask. She didn't want the answer to be "No," and she didn't want Abby to hesitate before answering, and if the answer was "Yes," then...then what? What was she going to do with a "Yes?" It honestly wouldn't make her feel better, because she hadn't lived the life where she was sought out by the mother who'd abandoned her. She'd found Abby cozy in her red house with the son she'd taken in, and she'd had sweets baking in the oven. If Abby had ever planned on looking for her, that time hadn't yet come when Bonnie had found her.

Maybe she would ask at some point in the far future, but right now she did not want to know. She was glad that Abby had never truly settled, glad that she'd never felt completely comfortable in her alternate life. She was glad that Mystic Falls had haunted her. But Abby had been too adept at living with that malcontent for her liking, so she didn't ask her question.

"Are you okay, Bonnie?"

No. "Yeah."

"You should be on cloud nine right now. You went through hell to bring that special boy back to life, and he's here, and you're...here."

"I wanted to come by and thank you."

"But why do you _look_ like that?" Bonnie had chosen to kill the garbage man to bring Jeremy back, but Abby was very aware that one didn't get used to caring about themselves and looking after themselves in one day.

"I'm just adjusting, is all."

"Are you thinking about the sacrifice, the man?"

"No."

"He's not going to come after you. He can't, not until Samhain when the veil is thinnest, and then only if he's figured out how to cross over."

"I'm fine. Jeremy's staying at the house."

Abby nodded. "You look thrilled."

Bonnie chuckled. "I am. I really am, I just...I'm getting used to it, I guess."

"By being here."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No, I want you to realize that there's something you're not saying. Are you at least talking to your father?"

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "No."

"Are you talking to Jeremy?"

"No."

Abby cocked her head and folded her lips.

"He died before," she blurted, frustrated. "And he came back. He's been hurt before, and he became better, and then things went back to normal; _we_...There's a pattern, I guess," and she felt herself becoming emotional. "I'm just waiting," she said and clammed up.

* * *

On the fourth day, Jeremy went to see his house. The sun had just disappeared; the families in the neighborhood, those who cared enough to make a routine out of it, were sitting down to dinner, and Jeremy was pulling up to his childhood home with his sister at the wheel.

The structure was boarded up and dilapidated. It had been a long time since Jeremy had noticed anything about his house. Now he leaned forward in his seat to look at the damage. The last time he'd been in the house, an Original vampire had burned to a crisp in his kitchen and another had been trapped in his living room thanks to Bonnie.

His eyes were riveted on the house while Elena put the car on park and turned it off.

The house looked lonely, barren, as if there had never been any life in it, as if no one had ever created memories there, like it had never been a home. He'd thought about leaving Mystic Falls plenty of times, especially when things were extra bad, but he'd never ever thought of his house one day being unlivable.

"What did you do, Elena?" he asked softly as he stared at the part of the second floor where his room was.

Elena didn't answer. She didn't think he really wanted her to. She jumped when he unclasped his seat belt and went for the door handle. "Wait! You can't go in there; you can't go out."

"Why not?" he asked, irritated.

"We don't want anybody to see you. Jeremy!" she hissed when he ignored her and opened the door. She opened her own door and met him when he walked around. "I don't think the house is structurally sound," she whispered as she looked around, afraid of anyone seeing them.

"Then I won't go inside," Jeremy said as he crossed the street.

Elena huffed out a breath and followed him.

Jeremy's steps slowed the closer he got. The house loomed over him in a way it never had before. It was blackened, the flames that had eaten it implanted on the wood; he could now see the mangled curtains. He wanted to go inside.

"Jeremy," Elena said in warning when he got on the porch.

He couldn't even open the door. It was boarded up. He slowly touched the handle, wondering how hot it had gotten when the fire had been burning.

"I'm sorry," Elena said.

He'd died. This was the proof. For the first time since he'd come back, he was faced with evidence that time had passed, that life had gone on and he'd missed it. His house was gone. It had been his, and he couldn't go back to it, because he'd died. "How long? How long was I gone?"

"About three weeks," Elena said thickly.

His chest felt heavy, his body weak, and his arms hung uselessly at his side. He walked to the left end of the porch, and remembered every time he had opened the front door to welcome someone into the house: Bonnie, Vicky, Matt, Anna, Elena, Jenna, his parents, Alaric, even Stefan and Damon. He'd spoken to Tyler on the threshold once and allowed him inside another time. He had nowhere to invite people to now. He closed his eyes and said, "You didn't have to do this."

He understood why she'd done it, but his house was also gone. He wanted it back; he didn't want this change.

"I didn't know what else to do," Elena explained. "You were gone. I wanted everything gone with you."

"Everything," he repeated numbly. Photo albums, his clothes, his books, his backpack, the bills, the folders, the china, his games, the televisions, his computer, his toothbrush, his bed, his shoes, his watches.

"I didn't want...any connection to this place. Jeremy, I've always been so scared of you dying."

He turned to look at her.

"You were my...everything. My last bit of family; we were in this together, and then you were gone, dead, and I-I didn't know how to deal with that. I didn't know how to accept it. I didn't know how to do exactly what I've done before: have a nice, quiet funeral and move on. I've done it so many times before, you know? But when you died...I didn't want a funeral. I didn't want to get dressed up. I didn't want to walk that stupid trail to the family plot; I didn't want flowers; I didn't want anyone to _speak_; I didn't want _condolences_, and I _didn't_ want company. I didn't want anything that would pretend that this was normal! Like it was okay that you died, but life goes on-I didn't want a life after you, not...not my life. Not life as I'd known it, like it had always been after Jenna died, after Alaric died, after mom and dad died, after John died. I wanted something different. I wanted a change, because you dying was a _big_ change. So I burned it. I burned it, and I partied, and I-I fed, and I killed, and it felt good. It felt so good. It felt different, out of the ordinary. It felt like a change. It felt like the opposite of life; it was _nothing_ like when you were around. And that's what I needed. Different. Something completely unrelated to you and what things were like when you were alive."

"I'm sorrythe house is gone," she said quietly. "But I didn't know what else to do. You being dead," her voice quivered, "there was nothing familiar about that. You didn't wake up, and...that didn't make any sense. You smelled, and...that didn't make any sense."

Jeremy hung his head and closed his eyes.

"That was different, you know. Smelling you? Jenna, John, Alaric, and mom and dad never smelled. But you smelled, and it was...pervasive. I couldn't get it out of my nose, and it didn't go away until..."

"Until you burned everything," Jeremy completed. "Including me."

"I really am sorry about that."

Jeremy moved to sit on the porch steps. "It's fine," he said robotically.

Elena looked at his hunched back and waited. When he said nothing more, she said, "That's it?" When he turned to look at her, she joined him on the steps. "That's all you have to say?"

"What else do you want me to say?"

"_Anything._"

"Like what? The house is gone. All of it. Just like that, and I wasn't around for it. _I_ was gone. And you were living. What do you want me to say?"

"You wish I hadn't burned it."

"That's obvious."

"I didn't know you were gonna be back."

"I _get_ that."

Elena turned and faced the street.

"Now what?" Jeremy asked glumly. "We have no home."

"We'll figure something out."

He didn't want to figure something out. He wanted to go inside his house, _this_ house, and get something to eat, and then go to his room and plop down in front of the computer, put on his headphones, and listen to music until he was sleepy.

"You killed," he said and looked at her.

"Just one person," she said, looking into his eyes. "I fed a lot," she said, looking down.

"On people."

She nodded.

"How does this switch work exactly?"

Looking up at him, she shrugged. "It's kind of like...this thing that gets rid of your filter. It got rid of my filter, at least. I'm like Caroline on speed," she said with a chuckle. "Only worse, I guess. I feel less...bothered by everything. And if someone bothers me..." she looked at the house across the street. "It felt good. To have someone else be in pain. It feels good. I was bored by the pain that I felt. Every time, it was the same thing: I lost someone; I hurt, and I did nothing about it. I just hurt and cried and carried that pain. But now," she said with a smile, "I could transfer that pain. I could see it play out on someone else.I could see it on someone else's face, hear it in someone's voice, and _everyone_ was shocked," she said with a short laugh. "Stefan, Damon, Caroline, Matt. It was thrilling."

"And Bonnie?"

Her smile disappeared, and she looked at Jeremy.

"What happens now? With the switch. Are you gonna turn it back on?"

Elena stared at him for a long time. When Jeremy inclined his head, she said, "I'm not sure. I don't think I'm ready for that."

Jeremy nodded. He stood and headed for the car. Elena called his name and when he turned she was looking at him expectantly. "What?" he asked, exasperated.

"What do you mean what?"

"Look, I'm glad you found a way to be okay while I was gone," he said, taking two steps closer to her. "I really am. I always want you to be okay."

"You're not shocked at what I did?"

"No, not really. I know you wouldn't have done it if you didn't have your switch off; I know you didn't choose to turn it off, but then again the switch isn't like the sire bond, right? Once it's off, you're not forced to do anything. You're not forced to keep it off."

"I didn't know how to turn it on. I still don't."

"But you didn't look either," he pointed out. "You weren't interested. Right?"

"Right," she answered quietly.

"And I get that." When Elena rolled her eyes and laid her cheek on her knees, he asked, "What is it? What do you want from me, Elena?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

"What's the matter?" he asked, his voice softer. He reclaimed his seat next to her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong," she said, looking up at him. "You're back," she said with a smile.

Jeremy considered her a moment and said, "You didn't talk to Bonnie."

Elena looked away.

"You keep wanting me to talk, is what I'm getting, but...I was gone, Elena. I wasn't here; I didn't see the house getting burned; didn't see you kill anyone; I missed all of it. But Bonnie was here. And you didn't talk to her. You left her alone."

Elena fought not to roll her eyes in response to being told she'd done something wrong. "How is she?" she asked instead.

"I don't know," Jeremy said, his voice a level deeper because of the frustration that had been building in the past four days, "She's not talking to me."

"Why not?" Elena asked with a frown.

"Who knows? But I'm sick of it." They slept in the same bed, but he was talking to Rudy more than he was talking to Bonnie, and he was sick of being shut out.

"Is it because of me?" Elena asked. When Jeremy looked at her, she continued, "We had a pretty...frosty exchange the other night. She called me after the house burned down. She was crying and inconsolable," she said, and the eye roll was in her voice, "Completely unwilling to accept that you were gone, and I told her to get over it," she said with a shrug, easily slipping back into the callousness that the off switch afforded her. "She's probably still mad about that."

"Probably. Good thing she didn't take your advice and get over it, huh?" Jeremy asked, visibly rankled by Elena's attitude.

Elena looked chastised, but her mouth kept talking, "Losing you was hard enough. I didn't have it in me to play grief counselor."

"Great," Jeremy bit out. "That's beautiful, Elena." He got up and walked to the car.

"What did you want me to do?" she asked as she followed him.

"Nothing. No one wants you to do anything. You did your thing; she did hers; it's all good."

"She wasn't _completely_ alone."

"Right, can you open the door?"

Elena punched the button twice, and the locks gave way. She tried to calm herself when she sat down. Things would only get worse if she said the first thing that came to her mind. She needed to be considerate, and after the glee she'd found in three weeks of being inconsiderate, it was quite a fight.

"I couldn't be there for her. I wasn't in the right headspace. And are you forgetting that she was a giant reminder of you?"

"Right."

"Jeremy!"

"_What?_"

"She wasn't there for me either!"

Jeremy's eyes bulged. "_What?"_

"I didn't mean that."

"_Bullshit._"

"She told me she was going to bring you back, but she did nothing. No, actually, she was talking about killing twelve people to make it happen. I couldn't let that pass."

"Right. Can you take me home?" When she opened her mouth, he cut her off, "I _don't_ want to talk about this anymore, Elena. Leave it alone. Leave _her_ alone." He slammed his back into the seat and waited for the car to start moving.

* * *

Bonnie's car was parked when Elena dropped Jeremy off. She was home. He wondered if she was going to hurry off to some place once he got to the room. It's what she's been doing the past three days, but Jeremy was irritated from his talk with Elena and seeing the state of his house, so he was ready to start an argument with Bonnie if she tried to avoid him.

He mumbled his agreement when Elena asked if they were going to hang out tomorrow, and he used the key Bonnie had given him to let himself into the house. He heard Rudy in the kitchen and wasn't surprised because he'd seen his car outside, too. He greeted him and made small talk, his tone clipped, and then he went where he wanted to be.

Bonnie closed the grimoire as soon as Jeremy opened the door. "Hey," she greeted.

"Hey," he answered and closed the door and dropped the house key on top of the dresser that was on his side of the bed. "Any headway with Silas?"

"Um, no." She was having a hard time concentrating. She's been opening the same grimoire to the same page for the past three days. And like she's been doing for the past three days, she got off the bed and went to deposit it in the tight space in her closet where she kept all of the grimoires. "How were things with Elena?"

"Fine," Jeremy answered automatically, watching her from the corners of his eyes. He knew she was gearing up to leave. "We went by the house."

Bonnie took her mind off of the excuse she was going to make in order to leave. Turning to him, she asked, "Your house?"

He nodded gravely, so she moved to the bed and sat down. He stood on the other side. "How was it?"

"Bad. When you said it was gone, that it had burned, I didn't think...Well, I didn't really think about it, I guess. I didn't think the proof would be right there, you know? The whole house is gone. Everything. Jenna's clothes, the stuff we'd kept in boxes..." His mind drifted, and he stared at the bed. "I died. I really died."

"Hey," Bonnie called him softly. She extended her hand, and he took it, joining her on the bed.

He squeezed her hand after he sat. "I wish she hadn't done it. I'm kind of really mad at her for doing it, 'cause now we have nothing. So much crap happened in that house, and just like that it's gone, like those things didn't matter, just like that, in the blink of an eye."

"They did matter," Bonnie consoled.

"But this is just...this is just another example of how things will never be the same: vampires, deaths, and now the house is gone." He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie said, scooting closer to him and resting her nose against his bicep.

"I miss you," Jeremy said when he looked into her eyes.

As if he'd said the magic words, Bonnie broke the intimacy. She took her face off of his arm. "I've been here," she said lightly.

Jeremy stared at her.

"Are you guys hanging out again tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"You don't...sound excited."

"We kind of argued."

"About the house?"

"Yeah...and you."

"Me, why me?"

He shrugged. He knew she wouldn't press. She was more interested in avoiding him.

"Well, I'm here if you need to talk," she said, getting off the bed.

"Where are you off to this time?"

"Uh, I was thinking of catching a movie?" she answered as she bent in her closet to retrieve a pair of shoes.

"Can I come?" he asked cheekily.

She chuckled. When she stood and turned around, Jeremy blinked at her twice. "Uh...well, I don't know if you'd like it."

"Do you even know what movie you're going to see?"

"I'll find out when I get there." She dropped the shoes and slipped her feet into them.

"So how do you know I won't like it?"

This was the most they'd spoken since Caroline, Elena, and Matt came to the house, and the fact wasn't lost on Bonnie, so she straightened, patter her hair into place, and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"You tell me."

"Nothing's wrong," she said sternly and went to pick up her keys on the nightstand.

He scooted to the headboard and rested his back against it. "I've found a consequence to you bringing me back to life."

That caught her attention. Her favorite subject: magic. He mentally rolled his eyes, even though the point he was bringing up was a serious and worrisome one.

"What do you mean?" Bonnie asked, keys in hand.

"My dick isn't working."

"...What?"

"For the past four days," he said slowly, because he realized she might think he was joking, "my dick hasn't been working. I can pee, but I can't get an erection. You'd know that if you cared to come anywhere near me."

Bonnie ignored the jab. It was a ridiculous question, but she forged ahead, "Are you sure?"

Jeremy raised his eyebrows. "The first day I came back, I spent like an hour eating you out-"

"Hey, _shh_! My dad is in the house!" she whispered.

"I ate you out," Jeremy whispered back with a smile. "And I didn't get hard at all. That's not normal. I've thought about you the past couple of days, what I want to do to you, what I want you to do to me; I've thought about Meagan Fox, Alisha Bailey; you, Meagan Fox, and Alisha togeth-"

"_Okay_."

"Nothing. I don't even have a hard-on when I wake up, and I'm pretty familiar with those."

"But-that's not possible. There isn't supposed to be a consequence."

"So, what, the spell didn't work on one part of me?" That couldn't be it because his dick was alive. It had color. It had feeling in it, because he felt it when he grabbed himself.

"Maybe it's a late reaction," Bonnie ventured, frowning.

"Four days late?"

"Abby said there would be no consequences, and I believe her. I traded a life for a life. There was balance; I even included the word _balance_ in the spell, multiple times."

"So what's the problem?"

"Take off your pants," Bonnie said, throwing her keys on the nightstand. "I want to see."

Well at least he had her attention now. While he stood and took off his shoes and unbuckled and unzipped his pants, Bonnie locked her bedroom door. Jeremy dropped his pants and his underwear and sighed at his limp dick. When he lifted his head, Bonnie was walking toward him. "Hey!" he jerked back, putting up a hand to stop her.

"What?" she asked, opening her arms.

"Do you have to get close?"

"Well, I need to see it."

"You can see it from where you are."

Bonnie pursed her lips and smiled. "You don't need to be embarrassed."

"I'm not embarrassed. I'm _not_," he insisted when she cocked her head. "But that doesn't mean you need to get up close and personal with my broken dick."

"I do. Come on, it'll be okay." She sat on the bed and patted the space next to her. "Lie down."

He scoffed. "Great." He's going to lay _prone_ before her with his broken dick. He avoided her eyes and took a spot on the bed. She stood to give him room, and he lied down as if on a slab. Feeling ridiculous, he took off his shirt so that he was naked. Might as well go all the way.

"Come on, Bonnie," he said and lifted his right thigh to block her when she reached for his dick.

"I have to touch it."

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't know. I won't know until I touch it."

He sighed and closed his eyes. His mouth turned down in embarrassment, and his chest and face warmed.

Bonnie pouted, feeling bad for him and thinking he looked adorable, and she said, "Keep your eyes closed if it helps." She dropped a long kiss on his lips, and it took Jeremy by surprise. When she lifted her head, he was smiling.

Bonnie asked him to move over, and he did, and she sat next to his thigh. She grabbed his dick and saw from the tension in his thigh that he still didn't want her to be this close to his malfunctioning penis. She ran her hand over it, taking in how thick it was even in its flaccid state. She hasn't touched a limp dick since she was maybe seven years old, but it felt normal. The problem was that it stayed limp.

"Do you feel this?" she asked of her touch.

"Mmm-hmm. The problem is that that should be _evident_," he said, his teeth clenched.

"You've never felt so much as a stir?"

"No."

"Have you tried...masturbating?"

"Every day since I realized it."

"And when did you realize this?"

"When I was eating you out a couple of days ago."

"Is that...is that why we didn't want to do anything else?"

"Yeah."

"So you were distracting me?" she asked, a smile forming.

"Yeah." He heard the smile in her voice, because he smiled too.

"Nice distraction," she complimented, and his smile widened.

Jeremy opened his eyes and looked at her. "So what's the diagnosis?"

Bonnie swallowed. "This isn't permanent. We beat death; we can beat this."

"What if this is the consequence for beating death?"

"_There is no consequence_; I told you that," she said, standing. "This is something else. Your nerve-endings are-"

"Damaged?"

"Asleep. The spell I casted called for you to wake up, to wake up with the morning sun and the morning dew. Maybe your dick hasn't woken up yet."

He realized that she was speaking purely from her belief and her conviction. She didn't want his dick to be permanently damaged, so she was speaking like it wasn't. It wasn't like she had a PhD in Penises Damaged by Magic. But her conviction was good enough for him. Her conviction had gotten him this far, after all.

"So what do we do? How do we wake it up?"

"Well it's alive," she said, thinking out loud. "And what do you do with living things? You channel them."

Jeremy's stomach flipped. He thought about his reaction to their kisses his first day back. He was positive that being channeled was going to cause the same reaction. Which meant it was an opportunity to get horny. So he was game.

Bonnie sat next to him again and kicked her shoes off. Letting her instincts guide her, she climbed on the bed and straddled his feet just below his knees. She didn't have a handbook for this; she didn't know of any precedence, but she was dogged in her belief that his condition wasn't permanent. After hearing about his state, her response was to touch him, to get close to him. So she did.

Bonnie put her hands on his shins, and he closed his eyes, too embarrassed to watch. Bonnie slowly moved her hands up, his hair tickling her palms. This was the first time she'd really touched him, looked at him, since his first day back. He hadn't laid before her like this since he'd been lifeless. She was conscious of the lead covering her feelings and her heart. She loved him. She wanted to tell him that. She wanted him to look into her eyes and see it. Abby had said that she was starving. She didn't want to starve. She wanted Jeremy to wrap her in his arms and hold her; she wanted to be comforted by the heat of his body.

_"Then take it." _Abby's voice echoed in her ears.

She didn't know how. She now told her herself that bringing him back to life had been different, special. She was back to living her every day life, and there was nothing special about her day to day life.

Jeremy opened his eyes. Her hands were cupped over his heart, but she didn't notice. Her eyes were distant, and he didn't think it was part of her homeopathic remedy. Finished with whatever she was thinking about, she looked at him, but quickly looked away when she saw that he was watching her. Her hands continued up to his neck and then traveled back down.

"So what happens if this works?" he asked. "You go back to ignoring me?"

Her hands stilled briefly and then she responded without looking at him, "I haven't been ignoring you."

Jeremy sat up in one swoop.

"Lie down," she said placidly, her eyes on him.

"I'm not lying down until you talk to me. You _have_ been ignoring me. You've been treating me like I'm still dead."

"_What?_"

Her eyes were wide as saucers, and Jeremy wished he'd softened his words, but then he decided his words were fine. That _was_ how he felt about her treatment.

"I have _not_ been treating you like you're still dead."

"You certainly haven't been treating me like I'm _here_."

"Don't say I've been treating you like you're dead. Please."

"How would you say it? You haven't been avoiding me; you haven't been treating me like I'm dead; so what would you say you've been doing? You barely _touch_ me," and he just realized this, "If I don't kiss you, then there won't be any kissing; you can't walk away fast enough when I walk into a room, and don't say you've been going to school. School gets out at like three, and you don't come home until it's time for you to shower and go to sleep. With your back to me. What's all of that called, Bonnie?"

Bonnie glanced away at the bedspread.

"You brought me back from the dead, reached through the freaking ground, reached to the OtherSide, and brought me back. I saw my grave. I saw where I was for three weeks. You changed all of that. And now you won't look at me. You brought me back to life, and you're acting like I don't exist. What am I supposed to call that?"

"Giving you space," she responded quietly.

"For what? I had more space than I needed on the OtherSide."

"How long do you think it'll be until you leave here? This isn't your house; you don't live here."

"So...you're avoiding me because I'm gonna leave?"

"I don't know why you haven't already."

"So you want me to leave."

"No!"

"So you want me to stay."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and sighed.

"I can't read your mind, you know."

"_I know that._ Jeremy..." she scoffed and sighed, "It was a big deal when you died. Your death...was a huge deal. So huge that Elena burned down your house, _her_ house. There was news coverage. Sheriff Forbes held a _press conference_. It was such a big deal that Elena needed to turn off her emotions. That's what Damon and Stefan thought when they saw how _bad_ she was handling it. There was a memorial. There were flyers of you all over school. There was a funeral; Matt invited me to it."

She smiled. "But do you know how many people know how you died? None of them. None of the people I mentioned know how you died; they don't know anything about your last minutes. I was there; I saw it. But...they don't know. Your death was a big deal, but...it wasn't over here. At school, I saw people look at your posters, and they looked sad. The two times I saw Elena before I started avoiding her, people looked at her and they looked sad.

When I saw Damon on the island, he looked relieved to see me. When Caroline saw me when I came back, she looked relieved. When Elena saw me, she looked relieved and hopeful. And at school...no one looked at me. Matt just looked tired from the whole ordeal. So...your death was a huge deal. And now you're back, and that's a big deal. And all anyone can talk to me about is Silas. And consequences. And questions. Because I didn't lose you. Outside of this house...I didn't lose you. Your sister lost you. _The town of Mystic Falls_ lost you. That's what Glenda Fell said when she was questioned about the town losing another Founding family member. But I didn't lose you. I was...the beacon of hope. I was the relief. I was the answer. I didn't lose you. So how can I have you back, right?

When you died...I didn't even remember it," she shook her head. "It was the weirdest, most uncomfortable thing. _I forgot_. I'd never lost my memory before, and no one did it to me. I did it to myself. The way you died, the image of you being killed...was so..._bad_...so hard to watch, so hard to accept, that...my brain just shut off. I forgot; I blocked it out, and I didn't choose to do it."

Jeremy took her hands, and they were stiff and cool to the touch. He had to clear his throat before he could make himself speak. "I know what you saw." He subconsciously squeezed her fingers to warm them up. "I was there. I saw it when you were attacked and bleeding on the floor."

Bonnie shifted on the bed, and he removed his legs from between hers and folded them, and she sat cross-legged across from him. She squeezed his hands back.

"And then it was like my brain needed me to remember it, or maybe I wanted to remember it, I don't know. But I dreamt of it in my sleep. It was the most detailed, vivid vision I've ever had. I saw everything frame by frame, and I was the third party like usual when I have a vision in my sleep. But the emotions...God...it was like I was on that floor again. Helpless. I wanted to get up and help you, you know."

"Of course I know that."

She smiled. "But I couldn't."

"You were dying."

She nodded. "I only thought one thing, and I could barely _think_ at all: things were getting blurry, my legs were numb, I couldn't feel my fingers, and I just wanted to close my eyes. But I kept thinking: you need my help. I have to help you," her voice swerved and dropped, and it reminded her of how she'd sounded when she was on the OtherSide. "It felt important that I keep thinking that. It felt like...a life line."

Jeremy gathered her onto his thighs, and the warmth in his shoulders seeped into her cool fingers.

"I miss you," he said softly. "I've _missed_ you. I was waiting for you, and you came, and...I just want you to look at me like you wanted me back, like you wanted me back the whole time I was gone, _like you missed me_."

Bonnie's breath caught as he looked into her eyes. His words wrapped around her heart and chased the coolness from her body. She just wanted him to look at her like she was the one who brought him back. She wanted everyone who was amazed at his resurrection to look at her and see why she'd brought him back, to see how badly she'd refused to accept that he was gone. She wanted everyone to look at her and _see_ what that meant, not look right through her and ask about Silas, or thank her, or ask how.

"I'm waiting for you," Jeremy said.

Bonnie's lips twitched into a small smile. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"_Okay._" Her smile bloomed and cracked the lead covering her feelings and her heart.

Jeremy smiled in kind. "Okay."

* * *

**A/N: This chapter was getting long enough, so I've split it off from the sex scene. Next chapter is called Sex Therapy ;D. Thank you for your reviews!**


	8. Sex Therapy

**A/N: I can't believe it's been over a month since I last updated! I've worked on the chapter most of that time, though, as evidenced by the length. 25 pages! It could be its own one-shot! Enjoy!**

**Chapter summary: Jeremy tells Bonnie a little of what it was like on the OtherSide, and the sex therapy takes a turn to emotional therapy when Bonnie asks him if he ran into Anna, leading them to discuss the cheating. Then, while wasting Rudy's water, the two reap the benefits of Jeremy's cured anatomy.**

* * *

**Sex Therapy**

"So are you gonna lie down now?" Bonnie asked, still smiling.

Most of Jeremy's embarrassment was gone, so when Bonnie pushed at his chest with her index fingers, he dramatically dropped to the bed and closed his eyes, Bonnie's chuckle chiming in his ears.

Bonnie straddled Jeremy's legs again but began her touch at his neck this time. She alternated between feather-light and firm touches, sometimes ghosting over his skin, other times taking full advantage of the friction between them. She rubbed his ankles and traced her hands back up his body, and she pictured his tattoo on his chest. She ran her hands down his arms and played the tips of her fingers in the indent of his elbows, and she smiled when he smiled. Continuing her travel down, she played her digits in his palms. She laced their fingers and stretched his arms above his head. Once they were there, she traced the curvy lines on his hands, the ones on his palms and the ones on his fingers.

Jeremy's hands wiggled under her fingers, and she realized that he was trying to move down. She smiled when she looked down, because she had moved up to straddle his chest in order to reach his hands, so her crotch was inches away from his head. She let his hands go and moved backward over his chest. Once she could see his face, she asked, "What are you doing?"

"Wondering if you're gonna take your clothes off too," he responded with a lazy smile.

Cocking her head, she asked, "Would that help you relax?"

"Of course. Always."

"Mmmm." She took off her blouse and shook her hair out after. She threw the blouse at the headboard and reached for her bra. Jeremy put his hands under his head, and she chuckled. She slowly put down one strap while giving him her best seductive eyes, though she figured her little grin didn't help with the seductress look, and then put down the other. A perfect idea struck her, and she stood on the bed, turned around, and straddled Jeremy in the reverse position.

A warm, thick something unfurled in Jeremy's abdomen and spread through his body, up to his chest, up to his heart and made it beat quicker, his arms, his cheeks, down to his toes, his thighs, his penis, and he grinned.

Bonnie bent backward, feeling her hair fall away from her shoulders. She reached her arms back and up and undid the clasp of her bra. Elated at her success, she threw the bra toward the headboard and swept her hair to her right shoulder. She pushed her stomach forward and her waist back, highlighting her toned behind.

Bonnie closed her eyes and cupped her breasts, feeling encouraged when one of Jeremy's hands found its way to her waist and the other smoothly trailed up her back, making her shiver. She lifted her shoulders until the shiver passed, then she squeezed her breasts and pinched her nipples. Jeremy wished he could see what was happening. His mind raced with thoughts of how much pressure she used to squeeze her breasts, how far out she was pulling her nipples, how hard her nipples were at the moment, and how heavy her breasts felt. He saw Bonnie's arms move up and down, and he imagined how quickly her breasts bounced, how fluffy and full they were on top and how soft the curve under her breasts were.

Bonnie's eyes lit up as another idea came to her, and she abruptly vacated Jeremy's legs as well as the bed. Jumping down, she went to her laptop and turned it on. After everything was loaded, she went to Pandora. She hummed as her eyes flitted over her numerous stations. Finally, she settled on her Fool of Me station. She'd created it after her breakup with Jeremy. She chose it because it had a lot of slow songs that she loved, slow songs that were perfect for sexy dancing. She expected something like Mariah Carey's _We Belong Together_ to start playing, or maybe Corinne Bailey Rae's _Closer_. Instead, the radio station's titular song started playing, and she chuckled even while her heart jumped, in part because the song exposed how she'd felt after their breakup and Jeremy was about to hear it, and in part because of her luck at having this particular song play first.

Covering her breasts, she stood and turned to the bed.

Jeremy chuckled at her determination to keep him from seeing her breasts. "Really?"

"Really," she answered with a calculated lift of her shoulder. She walked to the beat of the drum, giving her hips over to the rhythm, letting the tinkling of the piano play into the secret she was shielding from Jeremy with her hands. "Do you know this song?" she inquired when she was at the foot of the bed.

"No," he answered and sat up so that he could see her better. Reaching back to the headboard, he grabbed the pillow on which he slept and put it on his lap for modesty.

_I've allowed you to make me feel. I feel so dumb._

"It was in the movie _Love and Basketball_?" she hinted.

Jeremy stretched his mouth wide in apology. "I haven't seen it."

Bonnie rolled her eyes, though she expected it. "Listen," she said and raised her eyebrows as if she was listening to too, as if she didn't know the lyrics by heart.

They stopped talking just in time to hear Me'Shell NdegéOcello ask her lover why they'd made a fool out of her. Her voice drifted from the speakers, accepting of the breakup. Perhaps this was after she'd shed all of her tears; perhaps she saw her ex from time to time, not enough to keep her pain raw, but enough for her to know that the pain was still there, that her questions pertaining to how and why and when were still there. She saw this person enough to entertain the notion of asking them this question and getting an answer.

_I want to kiss you. Does she want you with the pain that I do?_

Jeremy's smile trembled and fell as he listened. He watched Bonnie's hands slide up to her collarbone to her neck, and he saw the promise of a dark brown areole. Bonnie made her head fall back slowly, and trailed her long fingers down her neck, her breasts crushed by her forearms. She looked at Jeremy and smiled. He smiled too, but he did it in such a way that she knew that he got what the song was about and how it related to them. Good. She took a step forward and turned around. She dropped her hands from her breasts and undid her pants. Once they were loose, she wound her hips down, down until she squatted on her toes, and when the stick hit the drum, she popped her butt in-time.

Bonnie leaned forward and dropped her knees on the floor. Jeremy moved closer to the edge of the bed. As she wound her hips, he saw the skin of her lower back, right above the seam of her butt, dip inward.

_You say that you don't care. We made love. _

Jeremy was aroused by how the muscles in her lower back jutted out as she effortlessly wound her hips and popped her butt, but he needed to talk to her. He got off the bed.

Bonnie heard the bed shifting, heard when he got off of it, but she kept doing what she was doing and waited to find out what he had in mind.

Jeremy dropped on his knees behind her, spreading his legs wide enough so that she fit in the middle. He substituted his hands where hers were and covered her breasts. Bonnie leaned her head to the left and smiled when he took the cue and moved her hair from her right shoulder and seared the skin with his lips.

_Tell me why._

"You didn't happen to see her on the other side, did you?" she questioned.

"I did. She's the one who warned me about Kol and some of the vampires in his line being after me. I only saw her that one time."

Bonnie waited. A lot can happen in one meeting. A lot can be said, and she needed to think of nothing else than the one meeting she'd had with Jeremy on the other side to know that.

Jeremy continued, his chin resting on her right shoulder. "It wasn't some big reunion. She was surprised to see me, though obviously she'd known I was dead since she was looking for me. But I guess she hadn't believed it. I was surprised to see her, someone who wasn't my family. She hugged me, and I hugged her back. She said she was sorry, and I thanked her. That's when she warned me about Kol. Because time is fleeting over there, or...your existence in one place is fleeting. Sometimes you get lucky and you can stay in one place for a day or more, especially if you're with someone you know, someone you love, like my parents and Jenna."

"You saw Jenna?"

"Once. On this...huge rock that floated above the ocean."

"_What?"_

Jeremy smiled. "I still don't know where it was or whether it was real."

"_Real_? Jeremy, it was a rock floating above the ocean."

"Bon, we went looking for a cure for vampirism on an island that had a cave where, if you spilled your blood, you could talk to your dead loved ones." His chin lifted and fell when Bonnie shrugged her concession to his point.

"What else?"

"It was so high up that the clouds were underit. _On_ the rock, it was foggy. This thick, white, rolling fog. It was beautiful. It was my favorite place over there, this massive black and grey-yellow rock. Maybe that was why I ended up there more than once. My parents kept trying to help me to adjust, but I kept disappearing on them. I didn't mean to. It's just that every time they tried to explain to me how things would be, what to expect, I thought about how much I wanted to be alive, how this was only temporary, and I was going to wake up in my bed or on the couch or on the floor, bloody, with some neck pains maybe, but healed. I thought about you and how you were probably trying to get me back, _hoping _you were trying to get me back, hoping you hadn't moved on like my parents were trying to get me to do. I had no idea how much time had passed."

He let go of Bonnie's breasts and hugged her tightly to him as the guitar rifts from Prince's _Purple Rain _came to an end.

"Really?" Bonnie asked as she squeezed his forearms to comfort him.

"Really. Time doesn't exist over there. It's just locations and emotions. The thing that scared me the most, other than staying dead, was something that Jenna told me when I saw her. I didn't get a chance to experience it, but...she told me that often times, especially after you've accepted that you're dead, and sometimes after you've been dead for years, your physical...well it's not physical, but like your body, the body that you see, your spirit I guess, it disappears. You become this energy; you're abstract."

"Energy. Like what witches pull from? Like a part of Nature?"

"I'm not sure. Well it can't be Nature nature, because you're still on the other side, and everything that's natural is on the side of the living, isn't it? The OtherSide has different rules. Obviously."

Bonnie smiled because she was discussing the parts that made up the sum of magic. She very rarely did that. She'd done it with Jeremy back when they were dating. Aja had explained what it means to cultivate natural magic, but that conversation had been pretty one-sided. Bonnie hadn't been in the mood to ask questions or exchange ideas.

"Yeah, but," she continued, "sometimes witches reach over to the OtherSide for a little help. For a little boost. I have."

"You think you're using the energy of disembodied spirits?"

"That'd be an endless source of energy wouldn't it? They're spirits, so they can't be hurt." Something in her immediately told her that that assumption was wrong. "Witches who are killed violently leave behind some energy, and that energy is in the form of tangible power that another witch can use if they know it's there and _if _that energy is enough to make a difference."

"Maybe it's energy that doesn't have a purpose. It just happens."

"_Everything_ has a purpose. Because everything's encased in magic. Shane taught me that, and I think he's right. Magic has rules, but it doesn't exist in a box."

They fell silent and listened to the sounds that flowed out of the speakers on Bonnie's computer, allowed music to guide the direction of their thoughts. Jeremy drew circles on her stomach and pinched the bit of skin he could gather in his fingers.

"It was a mistake," Jeremy said. He felt Bonnie's stomach quiver in his fingers. "I was in a bad place, a place I never expected to go back to. And she just seemed to be the perfect fit for that place."

Bonnie moved out of his embrace and turned around. He made a scintillating, if a little funny, picture: he was leaning on his knees, legs spread the width of her hips, dick hanging.

"What place was that?" she asked.

Jeremy swallowed. "The same place I was in after my parents died. And after Vicky died. I thought I was okay after Jenna and John died. I felt like I was. But before I could get a chance to handle it differently, I started seeing ghosts. And not just any ghosts. Anna and Vicky. That hadn't happened to anyone else, but for some reason it was happening to me."

"I told you the witches said there would be consequences."

"But why _that _consequence? I mean I know they didn't choose it, but why that consequence and why me? I was expecting something to happen to someone else."

He wasn't alone there. Bonnie had been waiting for someone else to pay for her helping Jeremy cheat death. Maybe someone else would die in his place. Or maybe something would happen to her powers as a consequence. The summer went by, three months, and she stopped thinking about it, only to be told by Jeremy that his ex-girlfriends were haunting him and he'd kept it a secret.

"So you felt like Anna was better able to help you get over this instead of me."

"I wasn't interested in getting over anything. If moving on was just an illusion to get me comfortable and happy just so someone else could die and I could end up right back at the bottom, then I wanted to stay at the bottom. I knew how the bottom felt, still do. I hated it, but it was _so _much better than getting attached, getting used to someone, only for them to die when you least expect it, and it's _always _unexpected. As many people as I've lost, every single one of them managed to come out of nowhere. I didn't want to deal with that anymore."

"And you couldn't tell me any of this," Bonnie said stiffly.

"I didn't want to," Jeremy said quietly.

Lips pursed, Bonnie nodded.

"You were where I wanted to be, Bonnie. Alive and with goals and with a future and actually figuring things out. I was still dealing with _people dying_. I felt stuck. I wanted to be with you, to be as...normal as you were."

"You realize I was still trying to figure things out, too."

"No you weren't."

Bonnie started at his rebuttal.

"You knew exactly what you wanted. You said you had a calling, remember? You knew that you wanted to fight Klaus to the death."

"_Jeremy._" She scoffed and stood. Walking away from him, she said, "You do realize that things have changed a whole lot since then?"

"I'm not talking about hindsight. I'm talking about the moment. _In that moment..._" Jeremy turned to look at her and then he stood. Bonnie's arms were crossed, but he saw that she was remembering how much certainty she'd had back then.

"I haven't been that clear about something since," she admitted. She laughed suddenly. "I barely remember what that feels like."

"I know what it feels like now." Walking over to the bed, he picked up his pants and slipped it on.

Bonnie joined him on the bed, arms still covering her breasts. She sat in the middle of the bed while he folded one of his legs on the sheets and the other stayed on the floor.

"You do?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. "When I got the Hunter's Mark, it was like things became so clear. The wanting to kill my sister part sucked, but other than that...I felt like I belonged to something. It felt good. It felt like I was finally standing on solid ground. You're a witch; everyone else is a vampire or part vampire; Elena was a doppelganger. I was the only one who wasn't anything."

"Not the only one," she pointed out. "Matt's just human."

"Yeah, but Matt isn't part of _The Gilberts_," he said with flair. He smiled when Bonnie smiled. "It's not that I felt inadequate. It's just that for how _involved _I was in all of this: my parents, my uncle John, Jenna, Vicky, Anna, _Elena_, and then you...it was nice to be able to do more for myself than...stay behind while you run out into the fray. And not being able to be compelled anymore?"

Bonnie chuckled.

"The _best_ freaking part," he said, smiling. Sobering, he continued, "I had some questions about being a Hunter, but I guess it doesn't matter now."

"How do you figure?" Bonnie asked, shuffling closer to him on the bed.

"I'm not a Hunter anymore."

"You don't know that. You've only been back four days. Maybe it'll take a while to come back. Like your penis," she joked, and Jeremy smiled. "And if not, then I can make you a Hunter again."

Jeremy laughed. "Just like that, huh?"

"Yeah," she shrugged.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"Will you be okay if the tattoo really is gone forever?"

"I think so. But that has nothing to do with us."

"It did before," she pointed out. "You didn't feel secure-"

Jeremy brought his other leg onto the bed, turning so that he faced Bonnie completely, his legs folded. "I've been through the worst thing I could ever go through in my life. Most of my family is dead, and I feel like that's an understatement. I only have _one_ left. _Most_ doesn't cover that fact. I've been compelled; I've died. Those things aren't going to stop me from loving you. They _haven't_. And they're not going to stop me from turning to you and talking to you. It's different now, because _I'm _different. It's hard, but I can handle it now. I mean...everyone I was afraid of losing, I've lost anyway."

"That's kind of morbid," Bonnie mumbled.

"But it's true," Jeremy said with a little smile.

Bonnie sighed. "It's not supposed to be like this. You're not supposed to _finally _be okay because _everyone's _dead." She didn't like the thought of him finally being okay because, in a way, he'd finally been beaten.

"I'm over how it's supposed to be. That doesn't mean I don't still want things," he assured her, "Or that I'm okay with losing everyone. I think I was still a lot naive when I started seeing Anna and Vicky. I don't know how. I didn't feel naive at the time. But now I think I was. I assumed I was okay with Jenna and John dying, that I was handling it fine just because I wasn't doing what I was doing after my parents died, but...I didn't handle it fine. I just handled it differently. I wasn't drinking all the time, but I still punished myself. I still found an opportunity to be out of it, disconnected."

"By loving a ghost."

"I didn't need to think about the future with a ghost," he mused. "She was already dead. I'd already gone through the worst with her."

They fell silent as Bonnie mulled over what they'd just exchanged. She remembered how hurt she'd been at the time, how disappointed. At the time, she had pictured someday having a huge confrontation, with tears, maybe some yelling, a couple of "How could yous?!" So much had happened to both of them since then, separately and together. She understood so easily now, but there were a couple of things that she needed to tell him.

"You hurt me."

"I know."

"You _hurt _me."

Jeremy stayed quiet. He avoided her gaze when she said:

"You broke my heart. I was in love with you, you know? Did you know that? Did you see?"

"I saw."

"Good," she said. Her smile was a mix of sad, pensive, and regretful. "I kept it from you. I waited for the perfect moment. I'd come so close to saying it when we spoke over the phone, but...I was trying to decide how to say it: over dinner, after a movie, at random? And while I was thinking about _that..._you were cheating on me. You were getting close to someone else. You were...tossing away what we had."

Jeremy avoided her eyes again.

"I was going in one direction, and suddenly I found out that I was heading in that direction all by myself. You made me feel like I was _wrong_," she said passionately, her voice rising just a smidgen. "You made me feel like I was wrong about you, about us, about how I felt, and you made me feel stupid. I _gave _you a chance to work things out with her, completely trusting you, even though it made me feel..."

Jeremy waited on bated breath as she found the words she was looking for.

"Alone? I felt alone while she was here, like I didn't completely have you. I know you had some things that you needed to work out, but just the fact that you _did_ need to work them out...I felt like an outsider in my own relationship," she said, her eyes bloated with tears. "Turns out I was right. I was an outsider."

Jeremy bowed his head.

"I should've followed that feeling, listened to it instead of waiting. And you never gave me an explanation."

Jeremy knew better than to point out that he'd tried. That hadn't been an effort. He hadn't even know just _what_ he'd planned to say to her when he'd asked her to listen to him at the Witches' House.

"You just let me go which was _so _confusing, because in the beginning..."

"In the beginning I tried," he finished.

"You tried. You tried _hard._ And I asked myself why, and I asked myself why the hell I ever gave you a chance. I should've been stronger, tougher, more resistant. You made me feel stupid for giving you a chance, for falling for you, for _forgetting _to protect my heart. Because I was alone back then; I _felt _alone, and then you came and you...You undid that. And then you just...changed your mind. That wasn't what it was, but that's what it felt like to me. You found the person you really loved; you felt stronger for someone who wasn't me, and I was just...I was worse than alone: I was an idiot who hadn't seen it coming. I went over everything to look for signs, and the biggest sign was the fact that you'd needed time to work out your feelings for your ex-girlfriend," she said bitterly.

"And then you were gone to Denver, and things just kept getting worse and worse for me, and I never got that explanation, and then things were so bad that I forgot about it. My life looked nothing like it did back when we were together or back when you cheated, so..." she shrugged.

"I never stopped thinking about you, after the breakup, while in Denver." Jeremy said softly. He looked at her arms crossed over her breasts, and he reached for her hands. He was met with a little resistance. As her arms fell away, and her breasts were revealed, he spared them an adequate glance. After all of her teasing, her secrets were viewable. He couldn't not take a moment.

Focusing on her face again, he continued, "It was a problem thinking about you while I was in Denver because of the compulsion, but I tried. I just couldn't think about you for long before I forgot and mellowed out. But when I saw you at the decade dance, it all came flooding back, all of those feelings. I never stopped being _aware_ of you, Bonnie. And then I started thinking that maybe we were just done. I screwed up, I was _screwed _up, so...that was it. But then you-"

"What?" Bonnie prompted at the grin on his face.

"You stopped my heart," he said, grinning wider. He watched her green pupils move down and then to the right as she remembered.

"When I desiccated Klaus?"

"Yeah." He was trying to contain himself, but she could see most of his teeth now. "It was amazing," he said, the memory taking his breath away. "My heartbeat became irregular; I could feel that something was wrong; my vision was going, but I'd never felt safer. You were above me, doing it, and...my last thought was 'This is okay. You'll bring me back.' And when you did,"

He was looking at her that way again. The way that had made her fall for him before she could stop herself. The way that had made her change her mind when she'd considered calling him the night of the '60s dance to break things off.

"I knew that I was still in love with you, that I was more in love with you now then I was before, and that I didn't want us to end. I knew that I wanted you back, that I wanted another shot."

Overwhelmed, Bonnie looked away from him.

"I want you to take a chance again," Jeremy implored. "On me, on us. I swear you won't be disappointed. I'm different. I won't betray you again, and I won't lie. I don't want anyone but you; I didn't before. I swear I can handle things better now."

Bonnie was looking away from him, her head bowed to her shoulder, though he could tell from her parted lips that she was thinking about his request. She was topless, a little rattled from their conversation. She'd just told him about how much he'd hurt her, how he'd disappointed her. Her hands were soft and thin in his hands, the skin in the middle of her fingers wrinkly and bunched up. And he was getting hard. He didn't understand what kind of timing that was, but the memory of her stopping his heart plus her hesitance now, the fact that he was getting to her but there was still a part of her that wanted to take more time, take things slower, all resulted in his dick stiffening in his pants.

He kept very still, wanting to tell her, but not wanting to disturb her thoughts and also not wanting to speak too soon in case his arousal went away. It was only in the beginning stage, after all. His penis hadn't even started to rise yet. It was still mostly soft.

Bonnie's green eyes connected to his dark brown ones and "mostly" became "kind of." Her mouth opened and it stayed that way long enough that he expected her to say, "I have to think about it." Instead she said:

"A second chance." Bonnie took control of the hand-holding. She maneuvered herself onto her knees and pulled him into the middle of the bed, amused at the fact that he was forced to wobble seeing as his legs were crossed, and she was holding his hands. Once she was satisfied with his placement, she climbed on his lap and crossed her legs behind his butt.

"Yeah," he said, not breaking eye-contact.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Instead of repeating herself, she kissed him.

"But if you hurt me again..."

"I won't. I swear. I promise."

She'd rescued Jeremy from death's clutches because she loved him. She hadn't been thinking about what their status would be afterward. She'd been starving, after all. She'd been prepared to hide under their label of "friends." How much she believed that that would happen was another story. However unfair it was, she would've resented Jeremy if he had let it happen. But that wasn't the boy she was in love with. There was no chance he would've let it happen, and however deeply rooted she was in her bad habits, a tiny but powerful part of her had known that. She hadn't been thinking explicitly about her and Jeremy getting back together, but it had felt like things between them couldn't remain the same after she resurrected him.

She smiled after Jeremy kissed her and then proceeded to rove on down to breasts. "This is supposed to be your therapy," she said throatily, observing him.

"It is," he affirmed, continuing his worship of her breasts. He was giving her left nipple short licks with the tip of his tongue when she started to channel him. He jumped a little, and his dick responded immediately.

"Seriously," she murmured. "We should get back to it."

"We're already back to it. It's working right now," he said against her breast.

Bonnie didn't know whether he meant their position was working just fine for channeling or that the channeling was working and his dick was getting back to normal. Instead of asking for clarification, she stopped channeling him.

Jeremy missed the feeling right away.

She moved away from him and smiled at the insult on his face. "Lie down."

Sighing, Jeremy moved toward the headboard and took off his pants. It was his turn to smile when his dick bounced out, hanging in mid-air. Bonnie raised her eyebrows, and he laid prone before her. Nervous energy streamed through his stomach. He wasn't embarrassed anymore, but somehow he felt more vulnerable. It wasn't because she was only half naked while he was in his birthday suit. She was on her knees between his legs, and he supposed that was the source of the vulnerability: she wasn't about to give him a blowjob. She was about to touch him, just touch him and look at him. There would be no pleasure in the traditional sense. He was just spread naked before her, he wondered if she had felt this vulnerable four days ago when her legs had been spread with him between them.

It was kind of thrilling, lying bare before her. He closed his eyes and gave in to her hands and to his thoughts. He was getting hard, but he wanted this fix to be permanent, so he hoped; he believed; he prayed, and he came the closest he had ever come to praying to Bonnie. Not Bonnie specifically but her powers. She was convinced that this was the way to fix him, and it was working so far, and her beliefs had never led anyone astray. Bonnie's powers always worked; Bonnie's spells always worked; what Bonnie wanted always came to pass. She'd wanted him. She'd wanted him in this realm, alive, breathing, in her life and by her side, and that's exactly where he was. So this would work.

And he kept that line of thought and insisted on it while her powers swam inside his body, hitting his heart, his throat, his ribcage. It was all surface, the way he conceptualized it. He didn't feel anything on his back. It was all in front: his nipples, his eyelids, his kneecaps, and he twitched when it hit some places that tickled.

He opened his eyes when the lyrics of the current song penetrated his concentration.

_And who am I to say you love me? _

_I don't know anything at all_

_And who am I to say you need me?_

He opened his eyes and caught her in beautiful concentration, her hands rubbing against his skin, isolated to his thighs and his pelvis, though he felt her power almost everywhere else. His heart thudded, and he gasped when she started taking more from him, giving more to him, and he shifted his legs as his arousal became more prominent.

Bonnie opened her eyes at his gasp. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he rasped. She looked down at his arousal and grinned, and his vulnerability ratcheted up, although this, too, turned him on. He even spread his legs a little wider.

Bonnie noticed and glided her hands up, forming a triangle on his pelvis. To her surprise, Jeremy jerked his hips up and cursed.

"Wow," he said breathlessly. "Wait." He took her hands away.

"You okay?"

"Fine, I just...that was unexpected."

"But good?" She grinned, because she knew it was good. She'd been looking at his face when he'd jerked, and she wouldn't mind if that was the look on his face for the rest of the night. She grew playful as Prince's _Kiss_ bounced out of her speakers.

_I want to be your fantasy_

_Maybe you could be mine_

Yes. The lyrics repeated themselves in her mind as she channeled him again, increasing the intensity. She felt it in her, too. She was feeding herself, and she felt the power bubbling inside of her. She wanted to let it out, but she wasn't sure that she could control the outcome. She might mess around and flick the television that her dad was watching downstairs on and off. So she kept it in, her excitement building, her heart racing, her toes stretching and curling. She didn't get many chances to focus on the fact nowadays, but she loved doing spells because they made her feel powerful. It felt good to exude her power. She didn't often feel arousal at the exodus. In fact, she'd only felt it three times: two of those times were when Luka had channeled her. It had been sudden and more than a little embarrassing when it happened in the middle of the school, but she'd successfully played it off, and she'd been ready for it when he'd channeled her on the rooftop. The third time had been when she'd stopped Jeremy's heart. Her arousal then had been unexpected, too, but after the spell had been completed and he'd come back to life, she'd had a hard time keeping her eyes off of him, off of his body, at the Klaus is Dead Party Caroline had quickly put together later.

Now, desire pooled in her belly and moistened her center; it hardened her nipples and sent ripples along her arms and chest. She channeled Jeremy from his pelvis and let the magic scurry throughout her body, unspent, unreleased. She felt Jeremy squirming under her and smirked. She opened her eyes in time to watch him throw his arms over his eyes in an attempt to deal with what he was feeling. Bonnie licked from below his belly button to his adam's apple where she sucked on the skin.

She tried to channel him through her lips, but she couldn't. Her use of her powers, especially channeling, was very focused on her hands. She didn't have enough concentration or training to use it through any other body part. Maybe that was something she could work on. Surely Jeremy wouldn't mind helping. He sure didn't mind her necking him. One of his hands was steady on the back of her head as she explored the scope of his neck. It was thicker and harder than the last time she'd kissed it. That was true for all of him.

Jeremy slipped his hands between them and went to work on her pants. When he'd loosened everything, Bonnie rose further so that he could slip them down, and she did the rest of the work. He rose to take over and explore her body, but she pushed him back down, the word in her eyes a firm, "No."

He had no problem going along with what she wanted, and what she wanted was close to his pelvis, so she kissed her way down his body to his dick. Unabashed, Bonnie licked his length, over and over, first slow, then more frequent until she felt like she was savoring a lollipop. When Jeremy's dick twitched toward his pelvis, she followed it and pushed it down with her tongue until it touched his lower stomach, and when she licked to the top she wrapped her lips around the head and took him in. She had no idea how he was reacting to this, but he hadn't stopped her yet or uttered a single sound, so she figured she could keep going.

She wrapped her hands at his base and sucked the mushroom head, only the head, pushing the flat of her tongue against it on the stroke up. Her hand at his base moved when he shifted his hips. She would've smiled at the response if she wasn't very into what she was doing. She liked the way the head of his dick felt in her mouth, loved the feel of the pudgy skin against her tongue.

When she was ready, she took him deeper, opened her mouth wider, and she changed her rhythm to accommodate his width. Her enthusiasm at blowing him manifested in her mouth watering, and she let it go, her saliva lubing his cock, making it easier for her to move her hand. She slurped as she sucked, and it only served to make her mouth water more.

She increased her tempo, head bobbing faster, lips alternating between tight and loose on his dick, hands a firm pressure, and Jeremy cursed. His elbows were on the bed, his hands suspended, and he'd been keeping quiet as he took in the sight of Bonnie taking care of his dick. What she was doing felt amazing, and his dick was rock hard. She took her time, then got voracious, and his dick was wet with her drool. He smiled sloppily when she moaned.

What excited him the most about Bonnie sucking his dick was that she seemed to love it, love it as much as he'd loved eating her out a couple of days ago. She didn't rush. At the moment, her hand was off his dick, and she was leisurely licking the length of him again, turning her head from side to side, her ass moving enticingly as she licked him from all angles.

She grabbed hold of him again and took him deep in her throat until she gagged hard. His eyes flew to the door, and he desperately hoped her dad wasn't anywhere in the vicinity. As mayor, Jeremy imagined that Rudy wouldn't just kick him out of the house if he discovered them, he'd kick him out of the town.

Bonnie wasn't concerned, because she took him deep again, and Jeremy decided that she had no reason to be concerned: wasn't her life that would be in danger if they got caught. Her gag reflex acted up again, and although Jeremy sent up a prayer that he was exaggerating how loud she was being, he was more excited about the fact that she kept trying. He threw caution to the wind, for the moment, and focused on how amazing it felt when his dick crawled up the tightness of her larynx.

"Do it again," he panted. So maybe he was throwing caution to the wind for longer than 'a moment.'

When Bonnie left him and went to the bathroom, he realized that she was paying a lot more attention than he'd given her credit for. She turned on the faucet in the shower, turned it all the way to the right and then walked back to the bedroom. She looked at him knowingly and he grinned.

She gagged every time, and he was ready to come. His hand was on the back of her head, sometimes rubbing, sometimes tightening his fingers as she took him deep, sometimes pushing adequately as she bobbed. He was spread-eagle under her, and he wanted to come in her mouth, but he warned her.

Bonnie gave no indication of how she planned to handle his impending release. She liked him hard, wanted him to stay that way. For now, however, she wanted to taste his come, so, spurred by his hands fisting her hair, she deep-throated him, waited for that grunt she knew was coming, and then held his base as she sucked him to completion.

Jeremy's balls tightened, heavy on the mattress, and as he opened his hands to cup her head, Bonnie felt what she'd been waiting for. He wasn't looking at her; she couldn't see his face, but she felt his eyes on her. As he got ready to come, as he literally held on to her for the impending fall, she felt the gravity of bringing him back to life. The way he panted for her, forced his breath out of his body for her, the way he cradled her head, pulling her towards him, the way he pushed his hips into her mouth, the way he was ready to come for her, the way his whole body was focused and attuned to what _she_ was doing. He was desperate for her like she was the woman who brought him back.

It was Jeremy's first orgasm since he'd come back to life, and he felt like the oxygen was being drained from his brain. His shoulders, chest, and thighs tightened, and he grunted roughly with every thrust of his come.

Bonnie lifted her head to swallow the last drop, and then she went back to sucking, something Jeremy had never had before. After blow jobs from his last two lovers, he would get a final lick and then they'd move on to something else. So the sensitivity he experienced as Bonnie sucked the head of his dick as if the slate had been wiped clean and she was blowing him for the first time that night was excruciating, delightfully so. At first.

"Okay, okay, okay," he plead, his hands on Bonnie's head clearly asking her to ease off.

Bonnie raised her head, and Jeremy backed away from her. "Are you okay?" she asked with a self-satisfied smile.

Jeremy smiled as he took refuge by the headboard. "I'm gonna get you for that," he panted.

"It wasn't punishment."

"I don't care. Shit. It was good." He let his head fall against the headboard. "Take off your underwear and come here."

Biting her lip (she could still taste him, and he tasted good), Bonnie stood on the bed and took off her underwear. "It's not a competition," she teased in hopes that they would indeed turn it into a competition.

"We're wasting your water," he remarked.

"Ah, damn it," Bonnie said as she looked at the bathroom. "Maybe you just take long showers." But she was starting to feel guilty about the water they were wasting.

Jeremy beckoned her with his finger.

"How far are we gonna take this?" she asked as she walked up to him.

"We don't have any condoms," he said.

He slouched against the headboard like the fight had been knocked out of him. Bonnie loved the picture.

"I can go buy some. It's not too late."

"I mean it's not a big deal; we can save it for another day." As he expected, all amicability disappeared from her face. "You said it wasn't a competition. I can just eat you out," he proposed as he grabbed on to her legs.

Bonnie squatted a little so that he could get at her. She continued the conversation while he worked. "Yeah, but...I already know what your tongue feels like. I had it...for a while...a couple of days ago. I want your..."

Jeremy let go of her clit, looked up at her and responded, "Dick?"

She smiled down at him. "Yes. Especially if we're gonna use the water as cover."

Jeremy sighed. "Fine. But don't go too far, most places are closed at this time."

"Some places are open," Bonnie said as she hopped off the bed and grabbed her underwear. It was heavy from her wetness, and she could see a glob of her pre come on it. She wiped it on her mattress. "What, you think I'm gonna go outside the town limits for condoms?"

"Maybe," Jeremy answered smugly. "How bad do you want it?"

Bonnie refused to answer him on principle, but after she was dressed and had gathered her keys, she leaned onto the bed to kiss him on the lips. "Bad," she said after they separated, and, with huge smiles on their faces, they parted.

* * *

Anxious, Bonnie repeatedly swallowed to get rid of Jeremy's taste and repeatedly wiped her mouth as she made her way toward the stairs. She needed to look normal. She patted her hair down and ran her fingers through the strands for the fourth time.

"Hi dad," she greeted when she got to the living room. Would she normally do that? She suddenly couldn't remember what the pattern of communication between her and her dad was.

"Hey," he greeted from his position on the couch, and then he looked closer at her attire as well as the bag slung over her shoulder. "You're going out?"

"Yeah, Jeremy's craving hot cheetos." Did she sound too happy? She'd come up with the lie as soon as she'd closed her bedroom door. Jeremy did love hot cheetos.

"We have plenty of food in the fridge," Rudy pointed out.

That stopped Bonnie in her tracks. "Yeah, but he wants hot cheetos, and I want to make him, you know, feel comfortable. He just came back to life; I don't wanna police his taste buds, you know? It's only like, what..." she dug around for her cell phone.

"Nine-ten," Rudy answered.

"Not too too late," Bonnie answered with a smile, and she _really _hoped she wasn't smiling too much. "I'll be right back," she said and headed for the door, her heart pounding.

"Don't roll down your windows; it's too dark out."

"I know," she said in the tone of someone who was accustomed to hearing this.

The night air was cool against her skin when she stepped out, and she wondered if the temperature really had gone down or if she was just _that_ relieved that her dad hadn't seen the truth on her face.

* * *

Bonnie bought three bags of hot cheetos, and nestled between two of the bags was a box of condoms. She'd thought about buying more than one box, but she'd slowed herself down. Now she had to get past her dad again.

"I'm back," she said when she stepped inside. He was tidying up the living room, which meant he was heading to bed.

"Good. You remember to turn off the headlights?"

"Dad, I haven't left the lights on since I first started driving."

"Just a reminder," he said, putting his hands up. "I'm gonna head up, did you want anything?"

Sometimes when he was home, they ate a snack in the kitchen together before bed. It started when she was in tenth grade.

"No, I'm fine. Um," she began as she inched toward the stairs. "I'm gonna give these to Jeremy. And then take a shower. Good night, dad."

"Night. You have school tomorrow."

"No I don't," she frowned. "Tomorrow's Saturday. _But_," she amended when he gave her a look, "I'll go to sleep soon. We both will. See you tomorrow." She left after he nodded.

Her adrenaline kicked in when Jeremy opened the door for her and she made it inside her room. "Hey," she said, breathless.

"Hey," he grinned and then kissed her. "Did you run up here?"

"Nope." She chuckled. "Just made it past my dad. Who is about to go to bed, so we need to be _very_ quiet. And I told him I'm going to shower, so that...was actually a bad idea."

"_Yeah."_

She spent about ten minutes in the shower when she wasn't washing her hair or shaving. Sex with Jeremy was going to take more than ten minutes. Or maybe not. Maybe they were both excited enough to get off in ten.

"Did you know these things cost more than pads? I spent twelve dollars on this," she complained of the condoms.

"I did not know that. What'd you buy?"

"Hot cheetos for cover. And," she dragged out the word while she reached for the box. "Durex. I wanted to call you to ask if you had a preference, but you don't have a phone."

Jeremy took the box from her. "No, this is fine. I've been wanting to try these."

"Really, why?"

"They have like a lube for delayed orgasm."

"Oh yeah, I read that on the box."

"And for you: ribbed."

"Yeah, what does that mean exactly?" she asked curiously.

"It's just the texture; it's supposed to rub inside you while I'm...rubbing inside you," he grinned, and Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"I hope it doesn't get painful," she said as she took the box from him to examine it.

"Not if you're wet enough," Jeremy said and scooped her up in his arms.

"Say that louder; my dad could be outside the door." She let the bag fall to the ground.

Jeremy deposited her on the bed, and Bonnie promptly began to strip.

"I'll go start your _shower_," he said. His sarcasm turned his mind to the fact that he wanted to make Bonnie shower _him._ He wasn't sure if ten minutes was enough for that. But he planned to make her wet for the duration of her fake shower.

He walked back into the bedroom room, taking his pants off.

"You look really good naked," Bonnie commented. And hard. He was hard again.

Jeremy looked up to find that she was under the covers, the box of condoms on top of her. He grinned.

Walking up to the bed, he lifted the covers and revealed her breasts.

"I figured doing it under the covers would help with noise cancellation."

"Mmm-hmm," he agreed, staring at her breasts. He kissed her on the lips and then covered her back up. He put the box on the nightstand closest to him and then went to the foot of the bed. He lifted the covers and pushed them back until her vulva was exposed to him. He'd eat her out under the covers, but he didn't want to suffocate. He pushed Bonnie's legs apart, and his stomach did a somersault at the creamy wetness he saw. "Nice." He petted her pussy, coating his fingers with her pre come.

"I had a lot to think about on the drive."

"I had a lot to think about while you were gone."

Bonnie licked her lips and patted down the lumps on the covers so she could watch him go down.

"Tell me when you're gonna come," Jeremy said. Then, getting a better idea, he asked Bonnie for her phone and she gave it to him. After locating the clock, he set it to ring in 10 minutes and then gave her the phone.

Bonnie looked at the time: 9:34. If Jeremy achieved his goal, she'd be exploding into a thousand crystal shards at 9:44. That was what she expected. It's why she ground her hips up into his mouth, why she bit the covers to stifle her moans, why her mind linked the water flowing out of the shower head in the bathroom to the saline liquid flowing out of her cunt.

It was what she expected, but as the phone rang, Jeremy having seduced her pussy slowly to match the passing time, the closest she got to her orgasm was a giant inhale.

Jeremy fixed the covers over her cunt and walked around the bed to the box of condoms.

"Wait wait. Is that it?" Bonnie asked breathlessly, disappointment setting in.

"I told you to tell me when you were gonna come," Jeremy replied, his disappointment not as sincere as hers. "You didn't."

"Wait no, let's do it again. I'll tell you this time, " Bonnie said, unable but to smile at her desperation.

Jeremy tore the foil open. "I was never gonna let you come," he said with a grin. "That's why I wanted the warning, but I got it anyway."

Bonnie sliced him in half with her eyes. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," he confirmed as he threw the upper half of the covers aside and climbed the bed. Straddling Bonnie's thighs, he licked his hand to wet it with his spit and gave his erect dick a couple of strokes before rolling on the condom. "I promise to make it up to you."

Bonnie snapped herself out of the haze in which the visual of Jeremy touching himself had put her. She closed her legs tight and shifted in order to rub her engorged cunt lips against each other.

"You better," she said, seemingly unaffected by his practical gesture. She reached over to put her phone on the nightstand. "You're the one who's into delaying your orgasm, not me."

They spoke quietly as both forgot to turn off the shower, and Jeremy began the slow process of entering her. She was more than wet enough, and the process of breaching her went very fast compared to the agonizing slowness of their first time, but Bonnie still said, "I should buy lube next time," and Jeremy agreed.

Bonnie was barely able to encourage him to enter farther because he had started slowly stroking out and in, and it was a long time since she'd felt this type of fullness. She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying not to tighten but failing at times. She moved her legs higher on his back and allowed him to go slightly deeper.

"Oh my God," she sighed too loud.

Jeremy held perfect control. He was wrapped in her arms, in her legs, in her cunt, and her voice was in his ear. He kept himself from panting as loudly as she did even though all he wanted was to be balls deep inside of her. It has been a long time since he was inside Bonnie, and, now that he remembered how snuggly she held him with her everything, he questioned how he had been able to clear his head of the feel of her long enough to stray towards Anna.

Emboldened by Bonnie pulling on his back, he moved her legs up to his shoulders and strained his calf muscles as he sank into her.

Bonnie gasped, her hands flailing before she grabbed hold of his thick biceps. "Oh my _God_," she wheezed.

"Shh," Jeremy reprimanded her.

"I'm sorry."

She squeaked every time he sank into her, her pitch climbing higher and higher. It wreaked havoc on Jeremy's control.

"Bon, you're gonna get us caught," he said with much difficulty. Nevertheless, he grabbed her legs beneath her knees, pushed her knees apart and toward her chest and mounted her.

Bonnie gasped and promptly choked on her saliva. Her chest rose completely off the bed and she shoved at Jeremy's pelvis.

Jeremy backed out as fast as he could without disrupting her. His hands slipped off of Bonnie's legs as she shut them tight. He tried and failed to keep the satisfaction out of his voice when he spoke, "Are you okay?"

"You did that on purpose," she said breathlessly, arms wrapped around her legs. She already wanted him to do it again. It had felt like the breath was knocked out of her and, try as she might, she would never breathe normally again. Her stomach had sunk while her chest had risen, and she had unwittingly increased the pressure of the water coming out of the shower.

"I can't keep quiet if you do stuff like that," she said.

Jeremy didn't want to get caught, but he was in love with Bonnie, he thought she was hot, she'd given him an amazing blowjob, and she was naked. Not to mention his dick was finally working after days of being flaccid, and he was working _it_ so good that she was squeaking and hitting high notes she had not even reached in his fantasies. Of _course_ he was going to push the boundaries of getting caught.

"Do it again," Bonnie whispered, her smile voracious. She opened up to Jeremy, and he entered her with her legs around his neck. It was easier for him to pump in and out of her. She was wet enough for there to be a _squish_ every time he humped into her. And then he put his hands under her knees, pushed her legs apart and up and mounted her, and she let out a "_Oof. Shit."_

She held on to the bedspread to curb her instinct to be loud, but it didn't help because she immediately started yelping as he set a rhythm that set out to unravel her as if she was made up of loosely tied ribbons.

"Keep quiet, Bonnie," Jeremy said at a decibel that wasn't exactly quiet. He loved reprimanding her for this, loved that she couldn't keep quiet.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie said, her voice suddenly gutteral. "I'm sorry; I'm sorry. Oh shit."

"I think...I'm liking how sorry you are."

"I'm sorry." She sounded as sorry as she possibly could. "I'm sorry, sorr-_ah_! _Sorry,_" she gasped.

She kept going, her contrition sometimes gasped, sometimes broken, sometimes moaned, and Jeremy started to be aware of the pressure he was putting on his calves. His fingers dug into the ripe flesh under her knees.

"Stop," he grunted. "Stop, you're gonna make me come."

Bonnie wanted to comment on the fact that he couldn't take what he was dishing, but she was close to coming herself.

Jeremy altered their position in order to relieve his legs. He sank back on his knees and used them to support his weight as he humped her.

Bonnie hugged Jeremy tight, her hands balled into fists around his neck. Her magic skated beneath her skin, restless and needing release almost as much as she did. She turned her head into the crook of Jeremy's neck and let out a rush of air as she came, her orgasm rolling through her, first short and quick, then long and lasting, and she bucked wildly against Jeremy, firmly planting her legs on the bed in order to meet his thrusts halfway.

Jeremy came while Bonnie was coming, his lower stomach constricting almost painfully. He orgasmed more powerfully than before, and he desperately tried to maintain control of his thrusting hips in order to draw out Bonnie's orgasm, though he felt like he was fucking her blindly at this point, his senses turned completely inward.

Jeremy lay on her after, their harsh breaths filling the room, but not quite managing to drown out the sound of the water furiously spraying out of the rattling shower head.

It suddenly occurred to Bonnie that the shower head, if not the pipes, might burst, and, alarmed, she tried to tell Jeremy to go shut it off. "Go."

Jeremy knew what she was talking about. He could hear it, and if he could hear it, Bonnie's father probably could too. But his muscles were relaxed as could be. Forcing himself not to think about the comfort he was leaving, he sprang off of Bonnie and blindly made his way to the bathroom.

_"We wasted so much water,"_ Bonnie whispered.

"Yeah. Were you doing the math back there, keeping track of how many liters?" Jeremy asked quietly as he disposed of the condom.

"Shut up. You know I wasn't." She languidly stretched her body and moaned. When Jeremy came out, she replaced him in the bathroom and closed the door halfway so that she could wipe herself.

"That was amazing," Jeremy said as Bonnie rejoined him. He was splayed like he wasn't aware he was naked.

Bonnie smiled wide, her lips favoring one side. "It was. It was _very_ amazing," she added as she straddled Jeremy. She used her power to turn off the light, and then they burrowed under the covers, finally settling in a state where most of Bonnie's body was on top of Jeremy, and he was turned on his side and cradling her. They needed to get dressed, but they remained in that position, enjoying the post-sex buzz.

"I love you," Jeremy said.

"I love you, too," Bonnie said, and there was a playfulness and lightness in her voice, an abandonment of herself to the present instead of worrying about the future and the past that Jeremy hadn't heard since they'd first began talking as friends, that Bonnie hadn't _felt_ since that period in her life. Jeremy felt confident that everything between them really was okay now.


	9. Prom?

**Prom?**

_Two weeks later..._

Bonnie opened her eyes and turned to peruse her street. People were still bustling home from school. Her bag digging into her shoulder, she turned and headed for her front door.

She's been having an easier time at school since she and Jeremy set things straight about their place in each other's lives two weeks ago. She'd finally gotten past that one page in her grimoire. And smiling came easier for her now; she held her head up in the halls and made eye contact with other people; she ceased shrinking away whenever Elena came over to pick up or drop off Jeremy; and she was relaxed. She was very, very relaxed.

Her little car had gotten a complete makeover, going from being the smelliest thing in her possession after she'd dug Jeremy out of his grave to the place where she and Jeremy plowed through the first box of condoms she'd bought. Her car wasn't the ideal location for sex, of course. It was too small, they both got cramps and charlie horses often; their legs always ached by the time they were done, and last night Jeremy had forgotten himself after he'd come, and he'd straightened up only to hit the back of his head against the car's roof.

The car wasn't ideal, but it was their best option at the moment. The day after she'd almost burst the pipes in her bathroom, she'd felt like her dad knew something every time they made eye contact. Jeremy had told her she was probably wrong. Of course, _he'd_ done everything he could to avoid Rudy. Bonnie's suspicion was enough to keep her from trying that in her bedroom again. Jeremy had immediately asked her for an alternative, because he was of the opinion that their dry spell had lasted long enough.

Bonnie told Rudy that she was helping the prom committee. Rudy, of course, was all too happy to hear that she was doing normal things. Truthfully, most days after school Bonnie picked Jeremy up, and they drove around Mystic Falls until nightfall. Then they stopped at one of the parks, the movie theater; Jeremy's favorite spot was the parking lot at Mystic Falls High, the one by the football field (he still doesn't know why he especially loves being blown in that location); Bonnie's favorite spot was on the edge of the woods (where Jeremy once bent her over the hood of the car), the same place where she'd waited for Abby to bring the sacrifice. And they fucked. Sometimes they made out, very rarely they talked (they did that in Bonnie's house), other times they kept things at the fondling stage, but most times they had sex. And although Bonnie pointed out on Wednesday that the Witches' House was available to them, they have yet to make the trek there.

And although her mood had picked up tremendously, things between her and the rest of the group remained the same. She didn't look for her, but sometimes she and Elena made eye contact, and Elena's version of a smile was pursing her lips together and widening them. Bonnie returned the gesture, and they moved on. Stefan was all too eager to speak to her about her progress on Silas. Today she'd finally told him that she was working on a way to protect them (and by them she'd met herself since Silas had only expressed an interest in her so far, and by working she'd meant with Abby, but she let Stefan form his own assumptions) from Silas' mind invasion. Her conversations with Caroline amounted to the still troubled vampire letting her know that they're still working on a cover story for Jeremy.

Matt didn't talk to her at all. He has stopped by her house twice to see Jeremy, but he didn't have much words for her. Jeremy had told her that he looked regretful. Matt was stuck on the opportunity he'd missed to have Vicky back, despite not knowing exactly _how_ Bonnie had brought Jeremy back.

When Bonnie got inside her house and turned from the door, she immediately noticed what was out of place. Eyes transfixed on the rich bouquet standing proudly on the cleared coffee table and an amazed smile on her face, she dropped her messenger bag on the chair closest to her and walked to the petals as if she was being pulled.

"Oh my God. Jeremy," she whispered. She slowly reached out and barely grazed her fingers on the bi-colored flowers. They were the deepest purple she had ever seen on top and outside. Inside, the purple on top slowly bled out and gave way to a beautiful white. And in the muddle of each cup was a bright yellow-orange stamen. She had never seen anything like it. She bent forward and inhaled. She had never cared for the smell of flowers, but this one reminded her of spring.

Before straightening, she reached next to the flowers and picked up the envelope that was on the table. Inside was a card, and on it was one question: _Prom?_

Her smile fell.

"Uh, I think I liked it better when you were looking at the flowers," Jeremy said from his position on the stairs.

Bonnie looked up. He must have tip-toed down while she was occupied by the flowers. Her smile returned. "Hi."

"Hi," he greeted and descended the last three steps and walked over to her. "You like them?"

"Are you kidding? I love them. Where did they come from?"

"Your mom's garden." He'd wanted to buy her roses, but Elena had asked if he wouldn't prefer something less cliché. She had asked him if Abby was still in town, and she'd told him about her garden. Jeremy had then talked to Rudy, telling him the same lie he'd told Elena: he wanted to give Bonnie flowers to show his appreciation. Rudy had gotten him in touch with Abby.

"These weren't here this morning. Did you drive to-"

"Your mom drove."

"Jeremy," she chastised. "You know you're not supposed to go out during the day."

"Don't worry; I had one of your sunglasses with me. Which I didn't even need."

Bonnie sighed and looked at the card again. "You know we can't."

"Why not?"

"I'll give you one guess."

It was Jeremy's turn to sigh. He sat on the arm of the couch. "Babe, I'm tired of being inside this house."

"I know," she said softly. "They're working on it."

"That's not really what I mean. I like being here. I like being with you, and I'd like to be with you on the outside. _And not just at night._ I feel like the creature you can't share with other people."

"Like a vampire?"

"No."

He said it with so little emotion that she laughed.

"I want to do _this._"

"Take me to prom."

"Yeah. You want to go, don't you?"

"I haven't really thought about it. I kind of accepted that I wasn't going."

"You have no reason not to go."

"Other than my date is supposed to be dead."

"No reason not to go. I think you're giving the people of this town way too much credit."

It reminded her of what Abby had said when she'd brought her the garbage man:

_"Generally people are not on the look out for something out of the ordinary, especially when they've got a routine rooted in their minds. Especially in Mystic Falls, ironically enough."_

"It's too dangerous," Bonnie decided.

"It isn't," Jeremy insisted. "Don't you want to go to your prom?"

"Jeremy-"

"Yes or no," he said, standing and closing the distance between them. "Proms are _darkly lit._ It'll be impressive if anyone even sees me. We'll go when we know the party's in full swing. Everybody'll be dancing and focusing on themselves and each other. They won't even see us walk in. Do you want to go to prom?" he asked again, snaking his arms around her waist.

Bonnie smiled and leaned into him. "They're close to coming up with the cover story."

"I already got the story: it was a miracle, and I don't remember what happened."

Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"Can you imagine how much they'd freak out if we just showed up?"

_That_ made Bonnie stop and consider.

Noticing that she paused, Jeremy nudged her just a little bit more, "Elena's going. She doesn't really have a date, but she's going."

"I saw Caroline at school today. She was kind of zoned out, which means her mind's already on tomorrow night."

Jeremy stayed quiet and let her come around to his side. Her eyes were lighting up, and she was starting to smile.

"I don't have a dress," she said.

"I don't have tux."

Bonnie mentally sifted through her closet. "Actually, I might have something. For me, though, not for you." She took his hand and led him upstairs. "For _you, _we're gonna need a little magic."

"You're gonna _spell_ me a suit?"

"Well if we want this to be a surprise we can't just call Matt and ask to borrow a suit." And she was really into this being a surprise. Abby had said she was drowning, and she'd been right. Her head had been above water for the past two weeks, and she didn't want to revert. While she wanted to stay home to keep the situation of her resurrected boyfriend contained, her two girl friends were getting ready to dance the night away. Why couldn't she? Jeremy was right. By showing up at prom, she'd show everyone that they couldn't take their time. And that's probably what they were doing: taking their time with the knowledge that she was content to wait. Jeremy said Elena didn't have a date, but would that still be true by the end of the night? When was the last time Elena was dateless? Before the night was over, either Stefan or Damon would be on her arm, meaning they'd be taking a break from coming up with a story for Jeremy in order to have a good time. Well _she_ was going to have a good time, too.

When they got upstairs, she was suddenly lifted off the ground. She laughed and secured her arms around Jeremy's neck as he carried her to the bedroom.

"Ride's over," he announced when they were inside the room.

"Here's your fare," she said and gave him a long kiss. "Okay," she said after he set her down, a little off-balance because of the kiss. "Um, have you and Elena gotten anywhere about where you guys are gonna live?"

"Uh, kind of?" He sat on the bed while she walked to the closet. "We're starting to look at apartments. I prefer a house, but I guess that's a little unrealistic, especially since I don't know where I'm gonna be after next year. She wants a place that's close to school for me. Why are you asking?"

"Because," she started as she looked for the dress. "My dad is starting to fidget. He hasn't said anything, and he probably won't for a while longer considering the circumstances, but I'm sensing that his generosity is waning. _I _kind of am starting to feel weird about how long you've been here. It's not like I'm working. He's taking care of both of us." Plus they're having sex. They never even tried to take Rudy's "respect the people in this house" rule seriously. That was probably the source of her weird feeling.

"I'm working on it," Jeremy said, a little amused. "Besides, I kind of feel it too. I can tell by how he looks at me now. It's different from before."

Bonnie chuckled.

"Damon offered to have me crash at the boarding house."

"_What?_" Bonnie asked, fixing him with a grimace.

"It's a thing he does," Jeremy said, completely unconcerned. "Elena's in a bind, and he acts like he cares enough to fix it. I remember when he got in my face about not talking to Elena the first time I found out she'd had me compelled. And then recently it was that training crap at the lake house. I mean the training helped a little bit, but whatever. Anyways, he said _mi casa es su casa._"

"Huh. So _dónde _are you moving in?"

"I think you mean _cuándo_."

"I took French for my foreign language," she said to excuse herself.

"And I'm taking Spanish. Or I was. Whatever."

"Are you looking forward to going back to school? Next year, I mean."

"It's weird. I feel like I haven't _really_ gone to school since...sophomore year. I'm kind of over it, but I also...I don't know; I feel like maybe I just need to get back into the routine."

"Hmm." Bonnie crossed her arms and walked to him, then she sat on his lap and put her arms around his neck. "Are you sure you don't know where you're gonna be after next year? I'm looking forward to getting away from Mystic Falls. Like...I'm looking forward to _not living here_."

"Yeah, but I don't know if I wanna do college yet," he said as she started to play with one of his ears.

"You were wondering about your tattoo, about being a chosen Hunter. Since my family created the Hunters, my mom might know something about the Mark."

"I don't need you to talk to her yet. Maybe I'll talk to her myself. Maybe...maybe it'd be nice for me to get away from this town for a little while, too. I just need a _dónde_."

Bonnie laughed. "You have a whole year."

"Yeah," he said contemplatively as he gazed at her.

Switching gears, she said happily, "I found my dress." She got off his lap and went to the closet. She pulled the dress out and held it against her body and turned to him and said melodiously, "Remember this?"

Jeremy's eyebrows knitted as he looked at the navy blue strapless dress. "I recognize it," he ventured.

"I wore it to my aunt Naomi's wedding this past summer, remember?"

"I _do _remember. You sent me a picture."

"Uh huh."

"You know I...spent a lot of time imagining you out of that dress. That's actually why I remember it." When Bonnie gave him a look, he said, "Hey, you're the one who sent me a picture with your back to the camera and the zipper all the way down."

She smiled. It was the first, and only, risqué picture she'd sent him.

"I still had that picture," he said sadly. It was a gone now, along with his burnt cell phone.

Bonnie walked up to him, bent down and kissed him on the lips. "No sad faces. So what do you think?" she asked, backing up. "Prom material?"

"Yeah. I mean you look really good in it." She'd sent him some pictures of her actually facing the camera.

"You don't look excited."

"I _am_ excited. I'm just...thinking about you taking it off."

Bonnie laughed and shook her head. "Maybe I should spell myself a dress, too. Go for something new, you know?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean the whole using magic thing. I need a tux, but...I don't know." Bonnie chants in an ancient language, Lioré, simply the latest in the list of languages Bennett witches have used to channel their magic. She chanted with authority and purpose; the words that came out of her mouth could alleviate pain or kill or create barriers or resuscitate. They could also give her nose bleeds. It was weird to think of her using those old, heavy words to make...clothes.

"It's fine. I just need some time to come up with it."

"Can you write it in English?"

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. Lioré sounds so old, like Latin, and you're gonna use it to create outfits?"

Bonnie laughed. "I _could_ write it in English, but there's power in words, and I've _never_ recited a spell in English. We're gonna be wearing these things in public. Do you want something to go wrong and we end up naked at the stroke of midnight or something?"

"Is that a trick question?" he asked and looked at the strapless dress again.

Bonnie rolled her eyes and threw it at him. "I'm gonna get to work."

* * *

**Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, everyone! I have almost hit every emotional beat/threshold I set out to hit when I thought up this story (that's how I write my fics). Only three more to go, which means the story's almost over. Next chapter might even be the last, but that depends on if I get inspired while writing (you guys have seen how I end up making a chapter too long and have to split it. And remember how this story was only supposed to be about Beremy going to prom? That seems like a joke now, Lol). **

**Upcoming emotional beats/thresholds: Bonnie clashes with the group at prom/Jeremy's presence at prom leads to someone demanding that Bonnie bring back their deceased loved one/Jeremy makes Bonnie a promise. There's also maybe, probably, one more sex scene :D.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Prom Part 1: The Playlist**

It was Prom Day Saturday, and Jeremy was in the living room transferring the last song onto Bonnie's phone when she called him up to her bedroom. He set her computer and phone on the coffee table and left.

"Stay just outside the door! Don't come inside!" she insisted.

"Okay," he said, curious and smiling.

"Ready?"

"Yeah," he said and looked down at his day to day clothes. "Do I need to get naked?"

"No," Bonnie said playfully from the other side of the door, and he chuckled.

He heard her voice rise on the other side, strong, steady...happy? He could hear her smiling through the spell. He couldn't remember a time when she'd smiled through a spell.

He closed his eyes, thinking the next time he opened them he'd be decked out for prom, but he quickly opened them when he felt the magic shape and mold itself around him.

Bonnie's magic was very tactical. Good or bad, her magic was always _felt_. She always felt it, but so did whoever she chose to enact her magic upon.

This time it was him. It didn't feel as debilitating as when she channeled him. This spell didn't carry the dread, and slight feeling of betrayal, that her knockout spell had carried when she'd kissed him to keep him out of the fight with Klaus the night Jenna died. There was no subdued panic overshadowed by dark arousal like when she'd stopped his heart.

This one felt strange, though not completely unfamiliar. He was incredibly aware of his skin, and at one point he felt naked, save for his underwear. When he looked down, however, he was clothed: black slacks, black dress shoes, though he doesn't remember his feet touching the floor when his old shoes disappeared, a tuxedo and white dress shirt underneath. A black bow tie completed the look.

Jeremy took a step back and looked down at himself.

"Did it work?"

"Yeah," he said, amazed. He hadn't doubted that it would work, but he'd yet to completely get used to the scope and range of her magic. He'd gone from a guy with _very_ few clothes to a guy wearing an expensive tux, it felt expensive, ready to take his beautiful girlfriend to prom. He was like Cinderella. Or the pauper who became a prince or something.

Bonnie's voice cut through his fairytale identity dilemma. "Are you ready to see me?"

She sounded a lot closer to the door.

"Yeah."

He thought she was going to tell him to open the door, so he was caught off guard when the door swung open and she stepped onto the threshold. "Holy-wow."

Bonnie stepped so that she could be viewed in all her glory.

Jeremy couldn't remember ever seeing her in red. She was a vision in cherry red.

Bonnie spun for him to see, even more in love with the dress now that he was seeing it. It was a strapless mermaid dress with a sweetheart neckline and beads that glittered like diamonds (she'd mentioned the stars in her spell) all over the bustier. The beads trailed down her right side and curved around her hip and continued in a short comet over her right thigh, stopping just above the tight ruffled skirt. She probably would've thought the layered ruffles were too much if she'd seen the dress on a rack, but she believed she pulled it off. And looking at Jeremy's little smile, she was _definitely_ pulling it off.

She took a couple of steps, walking away from Jeremy, and his eyes fell to the curve of her ass. The dress literally _curved_ over her ass, it was that tight, before loosening up just a tad where the skirt flared out.

Bonnie walked up to him, and when she started to walk away again, not through with showing off, Jeremy looped an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. Bonnie chuckled.

"You look amazing," he said to the back of her head.

Bonnie turned and asked, "Do I?"

Her lips were a much darker red than her dress. Her face was perfectly done up, and her hair was pinned at the roots and cascaded in thick, loose waves over her right shoulder. Even her bangs looked especially dark, full, and lovely. The only thing she lacked was an accessory. Although...She took a good look at Jeremy for the first time. She was so busy paying attention to the attention that he was paying her that she'd failed to notice that he looked even better now than the last time she'd seen him in a normal suit, at the Lockwoods' masquerade ball the year before. He looked hotter; he filled out his suit more.

"_You _look amazing. Wanna go see yourself in the mirror?"

"Yeah," Jeremy said, and he went to the bathroom.

Bonnie followed behind him. "You like it?" she asked when he was looking at himself.

"I do," he answered, satisfied. Even his hair was done. "Way better than funeral clothes, huh?"

"Definitely," Bonnie said and laced her fingers in his. It didn't sting her heart when he made reference to his deceased state. Him bringing it up now made her even more eager to join the other living teens.

"What are we gonna do about tickets?" Jeremy asked.

"Easy. Tikki's class president. We used to cheer together, and we've made eye contact since and even said hi a couple of times. I'll just _realize_ that I forgot our tickets when I go to pull them out."

Jeremy smiled. "Perfect." Turning to her, he said, "I have a surprise for you. It's not a corsage or anything, but I'm hoping you like it."

Intrigued, Bonnie let herself be led by him. When they got to the couch, he directed her to sit down.

"Close your eyes."

Bonnie closed her eyes and folded her hands on her lap. She raised her eyebrows and frowned simultaneously when she felt headphones being put in her ear. She heard Jeremy shuffle a little and then...

_Love of my life, my soulmate_

_You're my best friend_

_Part of me like breathing_

_Now half of me is left_

Bonnie opened her eyes when the song had reached it's middle point, a big smile on her face. Jeremy was kneeling at her side. "What is this?"

Jeremy handed her the phone.

"You made a playlist?" She scrolled over the song titles: _Who am I to say?_ by Hope_Fool of Me _by Me'Shell NdegéOcello, _End of the Road_ by Boyz II Men, _Ordinary People_ by John Legend, and _Kiss_ by Prince.

"I could only remember five of the songs. My attention was kind of focused...elsewhere."

"And you named it **Pipe-Breaking Sex**?! Oh my God," she said and laughed at the screen.

"Hey, I really thought long and hard about it."

"Oh my _God_," she said jubilantly as laughter seized her harder than before.

"The pipes _did_ almost break. The runner up was **Falsetto Sex**, in your honor."

"_Yeah_, I'm glad you went with this one," she said with a mild shove at his chest. She would _not_ have her sexual squealing serve as titles for playlists. That was too embarrassing.

Jeremy chuckled. "What do you think?"

"I love it," she cooed. Now these songs held multiple meanings for her. They were reminders of her heartbreak, yes, but more than that now they were reminders of her triumph, of the time when she'd chosen herself and her needs; they were reminders of an intimate, emotional moment with Jeremy. A moment when he'd finally let her into his head after a time when he hadn't, that time having lead to their dissolution. A moment when she'd _finally_ voiced how badly he had hurt her. They were reminders of the moment when she decided to give him and their relationship a second chance. And of course they were reminders of that falsetto sex.

She kissed him flush on the lips, and was ready when he lightly cupped her jaw and deepened it. "You took some of my lipstick," she said softly after they parted.

Jeremy wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand.

"A little better," Bonnie said. "And speaking of falsetto sex, we need to get out of here before my dad comes back."

"Okay." Jeremy stood and gave her space to stand. He closed the lid of her computer. "You want me to put it back in your room?"

"No, it's fine," she said, distracted as she turned on her phone's camera. She eagerly showed it to Jeremy.

His shoulders slumped a little, but Bonnie pretended she didn't see that. It was picture time. She had three pictures from the sixties decade dance, one of which they'd taken with his computer at the Witches' House. He had felt that they should commemorate the night with a picture, a remembrance. They'd surrounded themselves with a couple of the candles in order to improve the bad lighting. The effect was a somber glow that attracted more attention than their tired attempt at a smile. It had been Bonnie's favorite picture to look at back when she _really_ wanted to feel sad about their breakup. They looked like two people trying their hardest to claim victory during a hard time, but that somber yellow glow, attracting more attention than them, was the harsh reality.

She took two pictures of him in his tux, one with his hands in his pockets. She took a third one of his profile. By then he was looking miserable and was eager to take pictures of her. "I don't know why you're so allergic to taking pictures. You're _hot._" But she only got an eye-roll out of him.

Jeremy took six pictures of her: front shot, front shot with her hands on her hips, back shot with her looking over one shoulder, profile, profile with her bending her knees, and front shot with one knee slightly bent and one hand softly resting atop one of her breasts.

Together, they took five pictures: they set the timer and took one with him behind her with his hands around her waist and her hands on top of his. A second in the same position but her arms reaching back around his neck. A third of them kissing, a fourth of him kissing her neck, and a fourth of them touching foreheads. Bonnie naturally closed her eyes, a small smile playing on her lips, and Jeremy naturally kept his eyes on her. It was their favorite of the "twosome" pictures.

Bonnie smiled as she sifted through the pictures.

"Okay," Jeremy reminded her as he moved toward the door. "We need to go."

"Wait, I need to get my stuff." She was using one of the black clutches she already had.

When she descended the stairs, her phone, license, and some cash in the clutch and keys in her hand, she said with a barely contained smile, "Party time."

* * *

**A/N: I meant to mention this last chapter, but I guess it goes better with this one anyway. My good friend Cana, inspired by chapter 8, made a playlist for this fic (kind of)! The theme is Beremy's breakup, and you can listen to it on 8tracks dot com. It's called A Losing Game (Beremy Fanmix). I hope you enjoy it!**


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